Today we will begin a few lessons on the promises of God. Promises that we can depend on because of who He is. Promises that we know he will keep because he cannot lie. Men are fallible. The things that men may tell you are always subject to the character of the one saying it. Men change their minds and therefore break their promises. They think nothing of deciding to do differently than they originally said. God does neither. He never changes his mind, and therefore never recalls his promise.
Numbers 23:19 “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?”
Our first promise is a biggie! Love is probably the greatest desire we have as a human. We want to be loved, and we want someone to love. We find that in God first. He loves us unconditionally. We all want to know that someone loves us enough to forgive and forget our failures. Someone who knows us intimately, yet still loves us. We want to be loved in a way that makes us feel valued. We want a love that is sacrificial and will last forever. We also want that love to support us and inspire us. That’s a lot of love in one small paragraph. Yet, this is the kind of love we get from God.
This is the kind of love that Paul is talking about in Romans 8:38-39. No one but God can love like this. I have often heard preachers say that God made us with a God-shaped hole in our hearts that only He can fill.
Romans 8:38-39 “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Nothing can separate us from God’s love. He created us, and we failed Him. We chose to sin against Him, yet his love continued. It was so great He gave His Son to pay the price for our sins.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
His love is so great that even though we were the guilty ones, the ones who did not love Him, He made a way for the relationship to be restored so we could spend eternity with Him. While we were His enemies, He loved us and made a way to allow our relationship to go from being His enemy to being His child.
Romans 5:10 “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”
Many have used Romans 8:38-39 to say that because of God’s great love for us, there is nothing we can do that would cause us to miss Heaven. That is not what those verses are saying. God loves us no matter what we do, but he cannot approve of our sinfulness and violate His holiness. My children may do horrible things one day. They may curse me and walk away when I need them the most, but that does not change my love for them. I’ve known parents with children who were drug addicts, they were deeply distressed over the life their children were living. Because of love they put their children out of their home and would not be an enabler to their habit. This took a love much deeper than what most people have for others. If the child walks away never to return, does that mean the parent didn’t love them? Absolutely not! The child had a choice. The child chose what he desired, not what the parent had taught him. It’s the same way with God. He promised he would love us unconditionally, but that does not change the consequences of the choices we make. There is still a pathway that leads to Heaven that must be followed if we are to spend eternity with Him. His love does not overlook our sins, but it makes us see our sins and the need for a Savior. Who can walk away from this kind of love and trample on so great a promise?
