The Greatest Lover of All Time

The Greatest Lover of All Time
John R. Petrilli

GOD’S LOVE IS GLOBAL John 3:16

“God loved the people of this world so much that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who has faith in Him will have eternal life and never really die.” (CEV)

We live in a very well-connected world. What goes on in Africa is known instantly in America. What transpires in India gets out to Asia in a jiffy. News coming out of Europe makes international headlines overnight. Events in the Middle East find their way into the morning papers around the world. This is a big world we live in, and it has a lot going on. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed by it all. It can become a bit too much to take in all at once. While we may get overwhelmed sometimes, the good news is that God never does.
He can handle all the problems and situations no matter how big or widespread they are. This is because we serve a global God. In the third chapter of John’s gospel we discover that God not only has a global
concern, but that He also has a global love.

John gives us a picture that shows God embracing the world, warts and all, into His everlasting arms. And this love He has for our world is not casual at all. It’s intense. For God “SO” loved the world. It’s also an active love, not a passive love. God’s love caused Him to take action. That action was to send His only Son into our world so that we can be saved through faith in Him.

GOD’S LOVE IS COLOR BLIND Matthew 28:19-20; Rev. 5:9

“Go to the people of all nations and make them My disciples, and teach them to do everything I have told you.” (CEV)

“With Your own blood You bought for God people from every tribe, language, nation, and race.” (CEV)

People and cultures the world over are rediscovering the positive contribution that disabled people can make to their societies. More and more we’re realizing the value that each and every person has, regardless of any physical, mental, emotional or social challenges they are born with or suffer from. If I were to ask you if God had a disability, what would your answer be? Believe it or not, God does have a “disability”. You see, God is color blind. When we look at each other, we take note of the racial differences as indicated by the color and tone of our skin. But when God looks at each if us, He focuses on what’s inside in our hearts, not on our outward appearance. He doesn’t look down from heaven and say, “Oh look over there, there’s John the
American”, or “Oh, I remember you, you’re Suresh the man from India”. No, God sees us from the inside out.
He cares about who we are, not what we look like.

This isn’t to say that God’s not into diversity. Just look around and see all the different colors and personality types He’s made. Someone has said, “If you want to know if God has a sense of humor, go and visit your local zoo, and look at all the comical shapes, sizes and features of the animals there”. Jesus has given His followers the job of communicating the gospel to every nation on earth. Someday heaven will be occupied by a multi-national population.

GOD’S LOVE IS PERSONAL Galatians 2:20 ; Romans 10:19

“The Son of God loved ME, and gave Himself for ME.”

“What is man that You are mindful of him, or the Son of man, that You should visit him?”

I am a lover of astronomy. There are few things I enjoy more than to go out to the countryside at night and
look up at all the stars blanketing the heavens. I’ve been doing this for over 40 years now, yet I never get over the awesome beauty and splendor of the star-studded evening sky. Yet, sometimes, when I look up and see all this vast universe, I’m prone to ponder my own importance. To be honest with you, seeing such a great creation has a way of making me feel pretty small and insignificant by comparison. But that’s not really the case at all.
Even though we’re just one tiny individual in this huge universe, God still has a very personal and individual concern for each and every one of us.

That may sound too amazing to believe, but its true! One great ancient first-century scholar expressed this awe over God’s love and concern for him with these words. Centuries earlier a prolific poet named David felt this same way as he looked up at the night sky and said, To keep track of and care of every one of us on planet earth seems like a super Herculean task, but that’s only because we’re seeing it from a merely human perspective. For God, Who is ALL-present, ALL-powerful, and ALL-knowing, such a feat is actually piece of cake!
As Irish actress Roma Downey sings,

“May you understand the strength and power of God in a thunder storm in winter,
And the quiet beauty of creation in the calm of a summer sunset;
And may you come to realize that,
Insignificant as you may seem in this great universe,
You ARE an important part of God’s plan!

GOD’S LOVE IS UNCONDITIONAL Romans 5:6-8, 10-11

“Christ died for us at a time when we were helpless and sinful. No one is willing to die for an honest person, though someone might be willing to die for a truly good person. But God showed how much He loved us by having Christ die for us, even though we were sinful. Even when we were God’s enemies, He made peace with us, because His Son died for us. We are happy because God sent our Lord Jesus Christ to make peace with us!” (CEV)

More and more we’re living in a performance-based world. Companies and organizations are constantly evaluating the output and efficiency of their people and programs. While there’s nothing wrong with that, it IS a mistake to allow our relationships to be controlled by a performance-based mentality. Like it or not, some people will only accept us if we successfully achieve what they set down as a prerequisite to being an associate of theirs. But God has no such system upon which He bases His relationship to us on. No, God has no such strings attached in the way He relates to us. This verse shows that God’s greatest act of love for us came at a time when we were not at our personal best, but instead were at our personal worst! It says that He showed His deepest depth of His love for us when we hated Him the most! Now THAT’S unconditional love!

GOD’S LOVE IS INSEPARABLE Romans 8:38-39

“I am sure that nothing can separate us from God’s love – not life, or death, not angels or spirits, not the present or future, and not powers above or powers below. Nothing in all creation can separate us from God’s love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (CEV)

When two people are in love they want to spend every waking moment together. In America we have an old saying that such a couple is “inseparable”. The nature of love is that it longs to be with the object of its affection. When a person becomes a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ, God forms an inseparable bond between them and His Son. Nothing can ever break that bond. No earthly trouble, no supernatural power, and no future unseen circumstance can possibly sever this bond of love between God and His people. One of the great modern inventions along with the paper clip and duct tape is known as “super glue”. Super glue is really cool because it can permanently bond just about anything (including your finger tips!). There’s something in its chemical makeup that causes a super strong molecular bond. It may help if you think of God’s love as a kind of spiritual super glue. Once you get bonded to Christ, there’s nothing that can possibly separate you from Him. Are you connected to Jesus Christ? If not, you can become so right where you are right this moment. Simply admit that you have sinned against Him, that you’re ready to leave those sins behind and follow Him as your Lord and Savior. Once you’ve said that prayer truly meaning it from your heart, you’ll have initiated the most incredible enduring love relationship you’ll ever have with anyone, ever. And best of all, it’s a love that will stand the test of time and eternity!