God never stops loving us!

300 God never stops loving us

Do you know that most people who believe in God have a hard time believing that God loves them? People find it easy to imagine God as Creator and Judge, but terribly hard to see God as the One who loves them and cares deeply about them. But the truth is that our infinitely loving, creative, and perfect God creates nothing that opposes him, which is in opposition to himself. Everything God creates is good, a perfect manifestation in the universe of its perfection, creativity and love. Wherever we find the opposite - hatred, selfishness, greed, fear and fear - it is not because God made things that way.

What is evil other than the perversion of something that was originally good? Everything God created, including us humans, was extremely good, but it is the abuse of creation that creates evil. It exists because we are using the good freedom that God gave us in a wrong way to distance ourselves from God, the source of our being, rather than approaching Him.

What does that mean for us personally? Simply this: God created us from the depths of his selfless love, from his limitless supply of perfection and his creative power. This means that we are perfectly healthy and good, as he created us. But what about our problems, sins and mistakes? These are all a result of the fact that we have moved away from God, that we see ourselves as the source of our being instead of God who made us and preserves our lives.

If we have turned away from God and are going in our own direction, away from His love and kindness, then we cannot see what He really is. We see him as a fearsome judge, someone to be afraid of, someone waiting to hurt us, or to take revenge for anything wrong we've done. But God is not like that. He is always good and he always loves us.

He wants us to know him, that we experience his peace, his joy, his abundant love. Our Savior Jesus is the image of God's nature, and he carries all things with his mighty Word (Hebrews 1,3). Jesus showed us that God is for us, that he loves us despite our insane attempts to run away from him. Our Heavenly Father longs for us to repent and come to His home.

Jesus told a story of two sons. One of them was just like you and me. He wanted to be the center of his universe and create his own world for himself. So he claimed half of his legacy and ran as far as he could, living only to please himself. But his dedication to please himself and live for himself didn't work. The more he used his inheritance money for himself, the worse he felt and the more miserable he became.

From the depths of his neglected life, his thoughts turned back to his father and his home. For a brief, bright moment he understood that everything he really wanted, everything he really needed, everything that made him feel good and happy was to be found right at home with his father. In the strength of this moment of truth, in this momentary unimpeded contact with his father's heart, he tore himself out of the pig trough and began to make his way home, wondering whether his father had one at all the fool and loser he'd become.

You know the rest of the story - it's in Luke 15. His father not only took him in again, he saw him coming when he was still far away; he had been waiting earnestly for his prodigal son. And he ran to meet him, to hug him, and to shower him with the same love he had always had for him. His joy was so great that it had to be celebrated.

There was another brother, the older one. The one who stayed with his father, who hadn't run away and who hadn't messed up his life. When this brother heard of the celebration, he was angry and bitter with his brother and father and did not want to go inside. But his father also went out to him and out of the same love he talked to him and showered him with the same infinite love with which he had showered his vicious son.

Did the older brother finally turn around and take part in the celebration? Jesus didn't tell us that. But the story tells us what we all need to know - God never stops loving us. He longs for us to turn back and return to him, and it is never a question of whether he will forgive, accept, and love us because he is God our Father, whose infinite love is always the same.

Is it time for you to stop running away from God and return to His home? God made us perfect and whole, a wonderful expression in his beautiful universe of his love and of his creative power. And we still are. We just have to turn around and reconnect with our Creator, who still loves us today, just as he loved us when he called us into being.

by Joseph Tkach


pdfGod never stops loving us!