Monday, July 29,2024

Scripture:

Romans 8: 31-39

Questions to Consider:

How do you define love? What does it mean to love someone?
How does God’s love for us help shape our definition of love?

Reflection:

Since I did not preach this week I need to pull another theme into this week’s devotions. What better theme than love especially since this carries forward what Stephen taught on in Sunday morning Bible study. Unless I am mistaken, these are some of the very verses he covered. Secondarily, I have been reading this book recommended to me by mom (Pam) on love written by Jonathan Edwards that has framed God’s love in a light I have never seen. I’ll put the link to it below. To loosely steal a C.S. Lewis analogy, Edwards has picked up the multifaceted diamond that is love and rotated it around in the light such that colors have sparkled through that I didn’t even know existed.

I have been thinking about love for a while now and I pray that this week’s devotions help you see new sides of this diamond and serve as only the beginning of a much deeper conversation on this grand topic.

Throughout the week we are going to pull 5 points from the passage in Romans 8. Five facets of the diamond if we want to stick with that analogy and the first of those is that God’s love is eternal.

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Romans 8: 31-32 – The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2016. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

Think on the reality that God is for you. The first question that may come to mind is, “why is God for me”. What is the basis of his being for me? The answer to that question is that he is for you because he loves you. OK great, but why does he love me? The answer to that question is, he loves you because he always has. Hear the words of Deuteronomy:

14 Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. 15 Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Deuteronomy 10: 14-15

God is for you because long, long ago he set his affections, his heart in love, on our fathers and on their offspring which is you if you have faith in Christ. This means that God loves you with an eternal love and has loved you for all eternity. As far back as eternity goes our God has known you and he has loved you. He has desired good for you and is presently working good for you. Everything he does for you and to you flows from his great and eternal affection. Love that never fades, never sleeps, and never wavers.

How do we know this?

12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. John 15: 12-13

The eternal love of God proves itself in that God himself laid down his life for those he eternally loved. What greater love or greater proof is there than this? There can be none. Know today then that the eternal love of God is with you and it is for you. Nothing can stand against such love.

Prayer:

Thank you God that you love me with an eternal love and that you are for me because of that great love that you have had for me. It is a mystery why you have loved me from eternity but I thank you for your everlasting love. May I fear nothing under the protection of your eternal love.