Infinite Love

Part One

God's Love Revealed

1st John 4:7-19

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 

8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 

9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 

10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 

11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 

12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 

14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 

15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 

16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 

17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 

18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 

19 We love because he first loved us.

Hello! Over the next few weeks, we will be diving into the deep deep love of Jesus. 

Before we begin, I encourage you to read this lovely passage of scripture. 1st John 4:7-19.

First, what is love? There are a lot of definitions and uses of the word love, but the one that I think describes God's love best is found in the well-known 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, verses 4-8a.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 

5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 

6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 

7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8[a] Love never ends. 

That is God's love.

To begin, read verse 7 of 1st John chapter 4. It says:

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God."

It goes on in verse 8 to say, 

"Anyone who does not love, does not know God."

We all know that it is hard to love some people. We find them challenging. Maybe they don't show kindness or love to us, so we don't want to show it to them. Maybe they cause problems in our lives, or they don't follow Christ. 

But we read in this verse that love comes from God. We are born again because of His love, and that means that we can love as He loves through Him. When we accept Christ into our hearts, we are filled with the love of God. 

Of course, this doesn't mean that we love everyone all the time. It is impossible for us in our sinful selfish nature. But as we grow closer to God, we are continually strengthened in Him to love others as He loves us.

We read on to verse 9, where it says:

"In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him."

God revealed this love when He sent His Son to us. How God could love a world so broken, we may not understand. But He did, because His love is perfect and unconditional. Nothing we could ever do could separate us from the love of God.

Romans 8, verses 38 and 39:

"For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

God's love is infinite and unchangeable. 

I want to close with this simple quote:

“You will never look into the eyes of someone whom God doesn’t love.”

-Mother Teresa

Next week we will continue with this study of God's love.