Love Lines From God: No Limits

For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 NLT

I heard the fuzzy sound and knew I had connected, but that represented only a part of my challenge.

I remember when internet usage was limited. Sitting before my computer, I clicked the connect button, waited for the fuzzy sound to stop, and then began calculating. Nothing alerted me to how long I had spent online except keeping up with the time. What I could afford to pay each month got only several hours a month—less time than I spend online in a day now. Keeping up was important because I couldn’t afford the cost of going over my allotted time. It was a banner day when companies started charging a flat fee for unlimited use.

When I received my first smartphone, I had to repeat the process with data. Fortunately, an app let me know how much data I had used and how long I had before the usage started over. Recently, my wife and I switched to an unlimited plan. I can pick up my phone, go online, and stay online as often and as long as I want.

Limits are . . . limiting. God’s love isn’t. Jesus said its greatness encompassed the world and every individual in it.

I’ve discovered the consistency of God’s love. Regardless of how I treat Him in my service and spiritual disciplines, He remains consistent in His attention to me. I’m glad God isn’t moody like I sometimes am—loving one minute but not the next.

Within the consistency factor also lies the unmerited nature of God’s love. No one deserves it. We can’t be good enough to earn His love, our salvation, or a home in heaven. He gives because a significant part of His nature is love.

No one can force God to love. His nature urges Him on. His rain—and many other blessings—falls on the godly and the ungodly. He loves freely and chooses to enter into an even more intimate relationship with those who love Him in return.

God’s love and the many ways He expresses it gives us an example to pattern our love after. We’ll never measure up to His level of love, but there’s always room for improvement. The variety of love acts we can distribute are numerous and beyond our imagination.

God doesn’t limit His love; don’t limit yours.

Tweetable: Do you limit whom you will love?

Prayer: Father, may the love we give to others mimic the love You give to us.