Tuesday: Love Freely Given
Daily Lesson for Tuesday 31st of December 2024
God not only continued to bestow His love freely on Israel, despite repeated rebellions, but God also continues to bestow love freely upon us, even while we are sinners. We do not deserve God’s love, and we could never earn it. Conversely, God does not need us. The God of the Bible does not need anything (Acts 17:25). God’s love for you and for me and for all persons is entirely of His own volition.
Compare Revelation 4:11 and Psalms 33:6. What do these verses tell us about God’s freedom relative to Creation?
Image © Phil McKay at Goodsalt.com
God freely created this world. And, because of this, God is worthy of all glory, honor, and power. God did not need to create any world. Before the foundation of the world, God already enjoyed the love relationship that existed within the Godhead.
Read John 17:24. What does it tell us about God’s love before the world existed?
God did not need creatures as an object of His love. But, in accordance with His character of love, God chose to create the world and enter into a love relationship with creatures.
Not only did God freely create this world as a bestowal of His generous love, but God also continues freely to love humans, even after humans fell into sin in Eden, and even after we personally sin.
After the Fall in Eden, Adam and Eve had no right to continue to live and receive God’s love. But God, who upholds “all things by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3, NKJV), in His great love, mercy, and grace sustained their lives and has made a way to reconcile humanity back to Himself in love. And that reconciliation includes us, as well.
|
What does the fact that God continues to bestow love on this world, despite its fallenness and evil, tell us about His love and character? How should this truth cause us to love Him in return? |
(14)
When the words in our reference texts for today's study were written, our view of creation was limited. We could see as far as the horizon on a good day, and at night we could see a layer of stars above our heads. God's creation was pictured within that framework. Even in my own lifetime, our vision has expanded both ourwards to include about 13 billion light-years of space, and inwards into the inner workings of sub-atomic particles. Twice in my life, I have had moments of revelation that have given me pause to reflect on the creativity of God.
The first was when I visisted the Tidbinbilla deep space tracking station near Canberra in the early days of the voyager space probes. At the time one of the voyager's was passing in the vicinity of Saturn and in the visitor's center, they were playing an audio representation of the data coming back through the station. It was just a series of buzzes and hisses but I knew it was digital data carring the telemetric information from the cameras and sensors on Voyager. What struck me at the time was the data had taken 30 minutes to reach earth. I knew how fast radio signals travelled and this gave me a realistic sense of the size of the solar system.
The second revelation occurred when I visited the Siding Springs observatory in the Warrumbungles. The Australian National University has a large optical telescope there. In the visitors room you could look out and see the huge telescope and marvel at its size and engineering. But, pinned to the wall of the room was a photo about 30x30cm (12x12 inches). The photo was black with many white smudgy dots on it. Each dot represented a galaxy larger than our own milky way. I thought at the time that the earth is really an insignficant part of the universe in terms of size and energy.
Both of those events impressed on me that my picture of God was too small and limited. We try and understand God in terms of our frame of refernce, Earth, and that is pretty limiting. God needs to be understood in terms of a cosmic frame of reference.
It is not just size, shape and timing that matters. It is involvement. My faith is based not on what God created but his involvement in his creation. He was not the unmoved mover but became intimately involved with our existance in a way that we cannot fully understand, but can appreciate. And that is a theme I would like to explore more in this series of studies.
Thank you Maurice. This discussion, the vastness of space and God's power to create and sustain it, has largely been avoided by religion for nearly 200 years. The secular scientific community has intimidated the Judeo/Christian community with their "facts". The science of God, a Designer, is now retuning (certainly among physicists) as the only plausible explanation for our existence. The Maths just don't' add up for it all to be an accident.
There is a site I visit daily - "Astronauts Photo of the Day" which shows some
spectacular photos of the universe with explanations. By visiting it one can
see how very small our world, even our Milky Way galaxy is. It's quite humbling. There is also
a huge archive on the site
where you may further
explore.
Astronomy Picture of the Day
The love of God is so powerful that it holds the whole universe together (Psalm 136:5-9). This love is what sustains all forms of life. The continuous free flow of God’s love keeps life on earth. This is the love that cares even for a sparrow (Matthew 10:29-31). God’s love is ever-flowing and ever-free. It is intriguing to note that even the act of God destroying sin and sinners at the end of time, is an act of love (Psalm 89:14). Sin did not change the loving nature of God because God is unchangeable (Malachi 3:6). Even though sin separated man from God (Isaiah 59:2), his love continued to bring reconciliation by sending his Son to die on the cross (Romans 5:8, 2 Corinthians 5:19, Revelation 21:3-4).
No human words can adequately explain this pure, unconditional, and eternal love. With very limited understanding and revelation, we grasp this part of God’s nature. Our prayer to God is to increase his love in us (Ephesians 3:17-19, Philippians 1:9).
Knowing God as love is not enough. I must engage in this love. Experimenting with God's love daily is the best choice I can make in a lifetime. He is always willing to reveal Himself to me; nothing gives me more satisfaction.
May this be my motto for 2025!
God's love and character: God's love existed before the creation of the world, stars and planets.God's love for his son existed before the creation of the world = > God's love for believers = > God's love for the Trinity = > The love we don't get from our work (without price).Love given freely = > Love based on good will (God love us by his own choice).Unbreakable and eternal love and Love given to all.
As I studied this morning my mind went back to this beautiful song- The Love of God
"The love of God is greater far, than tongue or pen can ever tell
It goes beyond the highest star
And reaches to the lowest hell.
The guilty pair, bowed down with care
God gave His Son to win
His erring child He reconciled
And pardoned from his sin
Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies with parchment made
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Though stretch from sky to sky.
Oh love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints and angels' song
[Words by Frederick M. Lehman, 1917]
I agree that God does not need to create, but at the same time, it is the nature of love to create further objects of love. This is the reason many couples choose to have children. Yes, they already have each other to love, but they want to extend that love to others. And so it goes, as children have children and the parents love their grandchildren. I feel God is that way too, though in ways that our family relationships only shadow.
When one freely loves you , He/she does good for you, he/she may not care of what you may give back in thankfulness but will continue to freely love you and favour you,
Our God freely loves us , he does not care how sinful we maybe, how we may have fallen away from him all that he does is just love us. The " Free love" that has no strings attached " its we to decide to embrace the love or walk away from it , but even we come back this love shall be waiting for us,
Its my prayer that we all embrace the free love of God .