“I love you with an Everlasting Love!”

Within the body of Christendom, there are some areas that we continue to debate, and often we have friendly disagreements within the bonds of Christ!  However, for those believers that wrestle with such topics, there is one topic that we agree is incomprehensible.  The Love of God as described in the Bible is a doctrine that we continue to try to get our finite minds around.  So, let’s begin with the understanding that the vastness and depths of the love of our Infinite God will always be more than we can comprehend. Now, though the love of God is infinite, there are some things that we can know in our mind and heart in the application of the love of God in our lives and in our spiritual formation of Christ formed in us.

In Jeremiah 31:3, we see the emphatic statement from God, “I have love you with an everlasting love.”  This is a powerful statement to unpack.  The Hebrew word for “Everlasting” used here has many meanings including all past time, all future time, eternity past and eternity future, from ancient times, the time before time, unmeasurable duration, and lasting forever, just to name a few.  This is a strong word given to us by God so that we can know divine, infinite reality of the Love God has for you and me. Now, let’s look at the Hebrew word for “Love” used in this verse.  Much like the way love is used in modern English, this word is all encompassing.  It can mean to love, to like, amiable, to desire, endearing, flirting, to breathe, to delight, the pleasure of love, affection, to be a lover, and to be lovable.  This love covers all the dynamics of love in human understanding.  For example, the euphoric joy of meeting your dream girl and suddenly after many years, your story makes sense, perhaps it is the birth of a child and your love reaches deeper than you ever imagined, the affection for a friend who understands you, the admiration for a parent who sacrifices many things for your well-being, or the intimate, one-flesh love of husband and wife in sexual affection, the relationship that God chose to illustrate His love for His church (Bride of Christ).  Love is the path by which God is seeking to make us perfect and holy (1John 4:18) and we experience love in many ways throughout our lives, all of which come from God (1John 4:19).

“I have loved you with an everlasting love.  That is why I have continued to be faithful to you!” – Jeremiah 31:3 NETb

When we put together “everlasting” and “love”, we have a profound, hard to imagine loving affection of God for us.  What is fascinating about this statement is that the Hebrew word in English acts both as an adjective and an adverb.  Okay, so why is that fascinating?  I am glad you asked.  This is fascinating because the everlasting love of God spans all of time, all world history (adjective) and it also spans eternity as a constant without ever changing (adverb).  That means that God’s love for us is constant, unchanging, unwavering, unlimited, and unconditional.  Not only that, but this same love shared by God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit has been given to us.  In the profound prayer of Jesus in John 17, Jesus prays that those who know Him (John 17:3) would receive this love (John 17:24-25).  The depths of this blessing take some time to process, so it would be to the advantage of every Christian to read, contemplate, ponder, and pray through John 17 for a month or a year, because Jesus offered up this prayer filled with rich blessing for every child of God. 

The doctrine of the love of God is of significant importance because it is central to our eternal identity and in becoming our true person.  What does that mean?  Glad you asked!  It means that God has called us to be His child, to be holy, to live in eternal communion with Him, and enjoy Him forever.  This message of the love of God is central to the gospel (John 3:16).  Jesus told us that He came that we would have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10b), and this life is a gift we receive by faith by the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord Jesus (Romans 5:8-11).  When sin entered the world in Genesis 3 and spread across humanity, it brought death, (Romans 5:12-14), the sin nature that plagues us all, but the love of God expressed in the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us so that we can be saved (Romans 5:15-21).  One of the greatest characteristics of the love of God is reconciliation and we are children of the God of reconciliation, a central characteristic of the work of Jesus (Romans 5:9; Colossians 1:20) and central to the life of a Christian (Romans 12:18; 2Corinthians 5:18; Colossians 1:22).  The reconciliation of God is necessary because we cannot do it on our own.  Our sin nature separates us from God, so God, in His love for us, made a way for us to have life with Him.  It is because of our sin that we struggle to understand the love of God, but in one of his famous sermons on the Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning issues us a challenge that we must take seriously, a dare to trust, a dare to be vulnerable, a dare to be loved, “just as we are, not as we should be, because none of us are as we should be!”  The short clip below is a powerful declaration to start living into the abundant life that God has given us.

I HAVE A WORD FOR YOU.  I KNOW YOUR WHOLE LIFE STORY.  I KNOW EVERY SKELETON IN YOUR CLOSET.  I KNOW EVERY MOMENT OF SIN AND SHAME, DISHONESTY AND DEGRADED LOVE THAT HAS DARKENED YOUR PAST.  RIGHT NOW, I KNOW YOUR SHALLOW FAITH, YOUR FEEBLE PRAYER LIFE, YOUR INCONSISTENT DISCIPLESHIP, AND MY WORD TO YOU IS THIS:  “I DARE YOU TO TRUST THAT I LOVE YOU, JUST AS YOU ARE, NOT AS YOU SHOULD BE, BECAUSE NONE OF US ARE AS WE SHOULD BE!” – BRENNAN MANNING

Lastly, though we struggle, though we sin, though we doubt ourselves, though we focus on our flaws, though we are our own worst critics (Romans 7:14-25), we can rest in the love of God (Romans 8:1-39).  One day we will step into His Kingdom with new bodies, new minds, free of sin, free of guilt and shame, filled with grace and glory, and in our glorified state, we will enjoy eternal communion and friendship with God and the family of God.  Until then, be encouraged with these words:

• God Imagined you
• God Designed you
• God Created you
• God Chose you
• God Called you
• God Redeemed you
• God Sanctified you
• God Sealed you with a promise
• God Glorified you which we will realize in Eternity
• God Created Others who Give Thanks for You!
• And GOD did it all because He has Loved you & me with an Everlasting Love!

Prayer: Eternal God, heavenly Father, you have graciously accepted us as living members of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, and you have fed us with spiritual food in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood.  Send us now into the world in peace and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart, through Christ our Lord. Amen!