How do you define love?

What is your experience with love?

Who has loved you most?

Let’s look at God’s love for you. Doesn’t it make sense that your Creator’s love should be an indicator of how you can define and identify love?

1) Quality of God’s love for you is unconditional.

     There is no ‘I will love you if’.

There is no ‘I will love you when’.

There is no ‘I will love you until’.

2)  Scope of God’s love for you is everlasting through all stages of your life

There is nothing you need do to earn God’s love

There is nothing you can do to diminish God’s love for you

Jeremiah 31:³The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.

3) Power of God’s love for you is stronger than death

Romans 8:³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

³⁶ As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

³⁷ Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

³⁸ For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

³⁹ 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.

4) Cost of God’s love for you is free for you, cost everything for Him –

Your cost is explained in Ephesians 2:⁸ For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

⁹ Not of works, lest any man should boast

His cost is explained in Isaiah 53:¹ Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?

² For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

³ He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

⁴ Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

⁵ But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

⁷ He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

⁸ He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

⁹ And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰ Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

¹¹ He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

5) Depth of God’s love for you is that of a father and His identity

 Who is the Father?

2 Corinthians 1: ³Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;

Mercy = not giving what is deserved

Comfort = relief and consolation; freedom from pain and anxiety

Psalms 103: ¹² As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

¹³ Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.

¹⁴ For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.

What does God’s love for you mean to you?

How can God’s love for you help in your current circumstances?

Do you really know God’s love for you?

Redeeming Love – Bill and Gloria Gaither

From God’s heaven to a manger-From great riches to the poor
Came the Son of God to seek and save

From the azure halls of heaven To a rough and rugged cross
Jesus came, and there His life for all He gave

From a loving, Heavenly Father To a world that knew Him not
Came the man of sorrows, Christ the Lord
In my wanderings He found me Bought my soul with His own blood
Gave to me a peace this world could not afford

[Chorus:]
Redeeming love, a love that knows no limit Redeeming love, a love that shall not die
My soul shall sing throughout the endless ages With choirs extolling this great love on high

My soul shall sing throughout the endless ages

With choirs extolling this great love on high
Redeeming love, redeeming love.

Redeeming love reaches out – claims – buys back – sets free – makes new

Hebrews 12:¹ Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

² Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God

Dearly Beloved,

Run with your eyes on Jesus alone!

Run in faith that Jesus loves you with an everlasting, unconditional love; has uniquely designed and created only one you; has a good plan for your life; runs with you; and will        accomplish His purposes for you and through you!

Run in His strength alone!

Run with your eyes on the prize!

Run with your focus on His mission: to conform you to the image of Jesus Christ!

Run with the desire to finish strong!

Run with the desire to finish with your lamp burning!

Run with the expectation of being in His physical presence when you cross your finish line!

Run to His glory alone!

Run and keep on running!

Coach Patti