God is Love

So many people struggle with the above statement. Yet, through it, the Scripture shows us that the nature and character of God is love.

Love is a two way street! There are two sides to love. God’s love is absolutely unconditional and yet the equal and opposite truth is that God’s love has conditions. How can this be? It’s rather like picking up a coin. It’s the same coin with a picture of the head on one side and on the other side is the tail or body.

On one side of God’s coin, He offers the whole of the human race His unconditional love which, if received (conditional side of God’s love), offers all we need for life and living. It is only through His love that we can breathe our next breath. If God withdrew His love, the world would not be able to exist. His love is our life source. Acts 17:28 says, ‘In Him we live and move and have our being.’ Colossians 1:17 says, ‘Through Him all things hold together’.

What a privilege that the Creator of life invites us to partake of all He is through relationship with Him. Jesus has won for us a pardon and free entry. There is no requirement to achieve or perform in order to gain access and receive. This is the unconditional side of His love. We are invited to receive and accept God’s free gift.

In doing so, we acknowledge that we need the One who is love. Our sinful nature bows down and we allow Him to wash us and cleanse us and thereby receive His precious forgiveness. In His love He clothes us in beauty and gives us value and worth. We become sons and daughters, and heirs of His promises. The amazing gift of eternal life is part of His promise and yet His love offers life in abundance here on earth too (John 10:10).
As a son/daughter and heir, we do not have to strive, perform or compete. Like any member of royalty, our place is secured. An orphan is insecure, for at any given time their place maybe removed from them. This insecurity creates the pain of jealousy and mistrust.

To fulfil the conditional side of God’s love requires us to let go of our own way of fixing life (self love) and to come humbly with an open and trusting heart to receive. There’s no point in just looking at the gift and admiring it. Neither is there is any point in receiving the gift and leaving it on the shelf. The gift is there to be eaten and partaken of. As we devour and inwardly digest the goodness, which is God’s love, we will find it feeding us, bringing life and health to every area of our being.

The covenantal nature of God is that He did not decide one day that He would love me. This would be very scary because the next day He may decide differently. His unchanging nature is to love me. We no longer need to live as orphans. As a son/daughter and heir, we can live our lives in Him who is our life source, with His protection, provision and security. His love is freely available to us because Jesus opened up the way for us to receive it. What a gift!

Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank You for Your amazing gift of love. Please wash me clean and forgive me for all the ways I live my own way. I want to place my full trust in Your love, inwardly digest all of it and trust You to change all that makes me an orphan, so that I can be free to live in my inheritance as a son/daughter and heir. Amen.