We wish to explore God’s love that we might love him more.

Throughout the Scriptures, we are told that God is love.

♥“It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt” (Deut 7:7-8, ESV).♥“The LORD loves the righteous” (Ps. 146:8, ESV).♥“I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I

have continued my faithfulness to you” (Jer 31:3, ESV).♥“God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son,

that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, ESV).

♥“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8, ESV).♥“God, being rich in mercy, because of the great

love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (Eph 2:4-5, ESV). ♥“See what kind of love the Father has given to

us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 Jn 3:1, ESV).♥“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” (1 Jn 4:9, ESV).

♥“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” (1 Jn 4:16, ESV).

♥Marcion’s View.♥A god of the Old Testament whom the Jews

worshipped.♥ Juxtaposed to this god was the god of the New

Testament.♥Marcion’s basic problem was that he couldn’t

conceive of a God who was multi-faceted.♥ Therefore, he developed the idea that there are really

two gods.♥ The God we worship is love, but he is also just &

vengeful.

♥Some believe that God is so loving that he would not allow anyone to be lost.♥The universalists affirm this.♥What about Satan – is he going to be saved, too?

♥Scripture teaches that some will be lost.♥ “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire

prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt 25:41, ESV).♥ “Indeed God considers it just to repay with

affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thess 1:6-8, ESV).

♥God’s character is love.♥ “God is love” (1 Jn 3:16, ESV).♥God, in his innermost Being, is love.

♥ Therefore, his love is going to be constant.♥ “His steadfast love endures forever” (Ps 136:1, ESV).

♥God’s love made God do something.♥ “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son,

that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16, ESV).♥So many today view love simply as an emotion.

♥God’s love also means that God hates.♥ It is absolutely impossible for God to be a loving

Being unless he also hates.♥God absolutely hates sin.

♥ “And you shall not set up a pillar [an idol], which the LORD your God hates” (Deut. 16:22, ESV)

♥ “There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers” (Prov 6:16-19, ESV).

♥God’s love says that I am worth something.♥God loved me even when I was unlovable.♥ “God shows his love for us in that while we were

still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8, ESV).♥God’s love ought to compel me to love God.♥ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your

heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment” (Matt 22:37-38, ESV).♥Adolphe Monod, a famous French preacher of the

mid-1800’s, said before his death: “He has loved us - that is the whole of doctrine; let us love him - that is the sum total of the ethics of the Gospel.”

♥God’s love also requires that I love my fellow man.♥ “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from

God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 Jn 4:7, ESV).♥ “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother,

he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 Jn 4:20, ESV).

♥Loving others is the benchmark of Christianity.♥ “By this all people will know that you are my

disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:35, ESV).