In the OT, the phrase most often used is “steadfast love” putting an emphasis on “kindness, love, loyalty, mercy” of the relationship between God and people as well as between people, but used in the first instance three times as often as the second. “Steadfast” is not a separate word but uses to distinguish this love from another word about love as personal preferences. This means that the ancient people of God would use two different words to say “I love pizza” and “God loves me.”
God’s love I a loyal love, an unfailing kind of love, kindness, and goodness; a love that is related to faithfulness to His covenant. Our love fluctuates and changes but His does not. His wrath is short in contrast to his love:
Isaiah 54:7–8. For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord, your Redeemer.
The NT word for God’s love is well known: agapaō. What I didn’t know is this was once a colorless word used as a synonym for all kinds of love. For some reason, the biblical writers picked it to describe the love of God, a love that starts with Him and a love that the Bible describes as specific and incredibly special.
1 John 4:9–10. 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. 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.
This love is unlike the word we often use for so many things. It is about consistency, about putting the object of love above everything else. It is so large and so wonderful that when we know this love from God it overflows from us and through us to others, even our enemies.
Matthew 5:44–45. But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
This love is described in 1 Corinthians 13:4–13.
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends . . . . So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
This love is also given to us through the Holy Spirit, listed first as the fruit of being filled with Him. I cannot love like that as a mere human but only when I am relying on Him to pour it into my heart. When He does that, His people lose our self-focus and our hearts are turned to caring for others and glorifying the Lord.
This love is without end and without barriers. Romans 8:37–39 says:
“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 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.”
GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. Thinking about the love of God can put me on my face before Him. I am nothing and do nothing to merit it. It also sets me free from concern about myself, my well-being, my need for anything including what others might think of me, God loves me; that is enough!
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