God promises to come to our aid in times of distress as we walk in harmony with him. Love motivates him to make and keep this promise.
He would let us suffer without mitigation, purpose, or resolution if he were indifferent to our plight.
Our afflictions are easier to endure when we understand how much God loves us.
Unconditional And Unfailing
The Bible teaches that unconditional, sacrificial love is a fundamental aspect of God’s essence. He chose to lavish this love on us long before we were born.
Thus, God’s love for us is an expression of his eternal nature, not a response to our behavior. He loves us because of who he is, not because of who we are.
God’s nature is immutable. His divine attributes neither ebb nor flow in response to our sinfulness or righteousness. Thus, his love for us is unconditional.
Unfailing is the first adjective God uses in the Bible to describe his love for us, as recorded in Exodus 15:13. This word means inexhaustible, unchanging, unwavering, ever-present, and utterly dependable.
The Bible quantifies God’s love for us in terms of theology, relationships, nature, and infinity.
Theology
God loves us so much that through the death of Jesus, he paid the penalty for all our sins—past, present, and future; intentional and unintentional; egregious and innocuous—so that we could live with him in heaven forever.
An imperfect analogy illustrates this aspect of God’s love.
A judge sentences a defiant felon to life in prison. Then the judge steps down from the bench to serve the required jail time as a voluntary substitute so the convict can avoid incarceration and instead live blissfully in the judge’s home.
Most of us would gladly suffer to protect innocent children, especially our own. However, few of us would agree to be punished on behalf of guilty adults, particularly if they disdained us.
We would make this sacrifice only if we loved them as much as God loves us.
Relationships
We strive to know everything about those we love deeply so we can anticipate their needs and care for them effectively.
God knows every detail of our lives, including the number of hairs on our heads. He can even recite our DNA sequences from memory.
We learn about those we love by watching them in different situations over time.
God knew everything about our entire earthly life before we were born, including the unrighteous details of our past, present, and future.
That God chose to love us despite knowing every bad thing we would ever think, say, or do, means that no sin we have committed, are committing, or will commit can diminish his love for us.
Conversely, because God decided to love us perfectly before we were born, there is nothing we can think, say, or do to make him love us any more than he already does.
Nature
Jesus said God cares more about us than about birds, flowers, and grass. These analogies seem weak until we consider them in context.
Jesus lived in a semi-arid region of the world, parts of which had rocky soils, scarce rainfall, and sparse vegetation, a challenging environment for birds, flowers, and grasses to flourish.
Today, we live in a fallen world where abundance is elusive and suffering is commonplace, a hard place for us to flourish.
Jesus contended that if God provided for the birds, flowers, and grass to flourish in their harsh physical climate, he would certainly provide for us, the pinnacle of his creation, to thrive in our spiritually harsh environment.
Birds
God intended for birds to survive and thrive in their desolate habitat, so he gave them the eyesight, mobility, and instincts they needed to find food and shelter.
God wants us to soulfully prevail and prosper in a world marked by individual, family, and societal turmoil.
Therefore, he gave us the personal traits, earthly resources, Bible truths, and spiritual fruit we need to endure hardship and remain truly content.
Flowers
God created desert flowers to bring beauty to the rocky landscape. He designed them to seek moisture and nutrients wherever they take root, enabling them to bloom and grow.
God wants to beautify the world through us. Therefore, he provides us with constant access to his living water and spiritual nutrients so we can bloom and grow wherever we live.
Grass
God intended grass to stabilize the topsoil, so he designed it to absorb moisture, reduce runoff, and prevent erosion.
When we live righteously, spread the Gospel, and do good works, we build healthy families and cohesive societies that help stabilize the world.
Infinity
Like other aspects of his character, God’s love is boundless. Its length, breadth, height, depth, duration, density, and intensity are infinite.
The concept of infinity is hard enough for us to grasp in the realms of time, space, and mathematics.
It is even more difficult to imagine in the context of a personal relationship because we have never known anyone who was always pleasant to us in every circumstance, let alone loving.
The sun is an imperfect metaphor for God’s infinite love.
The variable intensity of the heat and light emanating from the sun is beyond human comprehension. Still, these forces radiate across 93 million miles of space to warm and illuminate the earth.
The immutable intensity of God’s infinite love is also beyond our comprehension. Yet it radiates across the great divide between his holiness and our sinfulness to bring us eternal life.
Read More About God’s Love For Us
God wants us to love him as he loves us, unconditionally. This kind of love is not native to us. It does not arise spontaneously. Read how we learn to love God unconditionally over time.
The sidebar on the page titled Surviving Affliction highlights the similarities between a mother’s love for her newborn and God’s love for us.
