God’s Love and What it Means

Some years ago it was common to see or hear this slogan: “Smile, God loves you!”

Even today, it is fairly common to hear that God loves us.  Not only in church or Sunday School, but on the radio, on TV, and when approached by a Christian soul-winner or evangelist.

God does love us, after all.  But what does God’s love mean in every day life?

It does not mean that everything will always go the way we wish it would.  The New Testament says, for example, that Jesus loved a family in Bethany, a village near Jerusalem.  When a man named Lazarus became ill, Mary and her sister Martha sent this message to Jesus: “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”

We might expect Jesus to go right away to see Lazarus, in order to pray for him and make him well.  After all, Jesus touched and healed people all the time.  Or the Lord might even stay where He was and simply command the illness to leave Lazarus.  That’s essentially what He did for a Roman Centurion (Matthew 8:5-13).

Since Jesus cared for His beloved friend, we might expect Him to act immediately so that Lazarus would not suffer.  But Jesus did not go to see Lazarus and He did not command the illness to vanish.  The Lord Jesus remained where He was until Lazarus had died.

God loves me and He loves you.  So we might be forgiven for thinking that God’s love will keep us from going through difficult times.  God’s love will certainly protect us from danger, disease and death.  Our children and loved ones will not suffer.  Right?  Not always.

The Bible does talk about the protection of God.  And yet every human being, and every other living thing dies.  Most of us will suffer illnesses of some kind at some point in our lives.  We experience broken legs, serious burns, the loss of homes and jobs and even the loss of loved ones.  God’s love does not keep all the bad things out of our lives.

When Jesus arrived in Bethany, to see Lazarus, the man had been dead for four days.  He was already buried and the family and friends were in mourning.  Even Jesus wept when He saw all the people who had gathered to pay respect and to mourn the loss of a decent man.  Clearly, the Lord had failed His good friend.

Where was God’s love when Lazarus was dying?  God had not forgotten Lazarus.  The love of God had not grown cold.

Jesus spoke and called Lazarus out of the grave.  It was not a corpse that shuffled out to the entrance of the tomb, but a living man.  Jesus had given Lazarus new life.

As the Lord Jesus had said to Martha on the way,  “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

God’s love does not mean that we will not experience the struggles and hardships of this life.  We may even suffer more than our share because of our simple faith in God.  The love of God means that when this world has done all that it can do to us, even to the point of death itself, that we still have a place in God’s heart, in God’s plan and in God’s own life.

We are God’s children by virtue of our faith in Jesus Christ, and this world is not our home.  When all is said and done, Jesus will call us forth and we will go to be with Him and with our Father in heaven, and we will remain with the Lord, in the Father’s own house, for all eternity.

God’s love means that God Himself always has the last word, the final say as to what happens.  We often see that much in our daily lives.  Everything may seem to be lost, no miracles seem to appear to save us, and then it is simply too late for God to act.  And then God acts anyway.  One word from the Lord and things are not only set right, they are changed forever.  All is made new.

Jesus was not too late to save Lazarus.  He only proved that even physical death cannot separate us from the love of God, as Paul would later write in his letter to the believers in Rome.  And in that very same letter, Paul goes on to say: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

With God there are no “bad things” because He makes every event and circumstance to work together for our good, if we love Him and are among His children.  No matter what life or the devil or human beings may throw at us, we are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus, who also suffered and died so that we might have forgiveness and eternal life.

Peter also had much to say about these things.  In fact, near the end of his general letter to the churches of the first century, Peter writes:

“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time.   Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.

“Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.  Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.

“And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you.  To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.  (1 Peter 5:6-11, NRSV)

Where is God when everything seems to be falling apart?  He is right there with us.  It may seem that He is far away, and not paying much attention to our desperate plea for help.  But the love of God is with us and it will see us through this life and whatever else may come.  And when all is said and done, it will lift us up on high.

Jim