Our Father loves each of us with perfect love. His love is unqualified and incomparable.
“For God so loved the WORLD” is a wonderful phrase. If God didn’t love us unconditionally, we would have no hope.
John 3:16 gives us a picture of God’s love: “For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life” (The Amplified Bible).
“Whoever” means anybody! The most vicious and vile person you can imagine is a “whoever.”
I am so grateful for the day I believed in Jesus, the only begotten Son of God. The day we each believe in Him is the day everything changes for us. We switch tracks. We get off the road of death and destruction and get on the road to abundant life.
First we believe in Jesus. And as we get to know Him through spending time with Him in prayer and in His Word, each day we begin to see that we can trust in, cling to and rely on Him as the source for every aspect of life.
Every abominable thing in us is exchanged for every wonderful thing heaven has to offer. We begin to look at and handle the situations in our lives from Jesus’ perspective. We realize that living every day by the principles and power of God’s Word is the only way to exist.
I have learned God wants things to go well with us. He has taught me how His love works in my life, how His Word and the laws of the Spirit work for the good of His children. Everything He has provided in this abundant life is a product of His love.
Our Father loves us with perfect love. It’s unqualified and incomparable. Even if we get off track here and there, He loves us right back onto the right path. He puts us right back into the stream of His will. Isn’t it wonderful to be God’s children?
He not only made provision for us to be born again into His family but also adopted us as dear children. You are greatly loved and dearly prized.
Just like a parent loves a child regardless of the child’s actions, so God loves us. He has taken on the responsibility to feed and clothe us, give us the desires of our hearts, keep us healthy and whole, deliver us from trouble, teach us in all wisdom, knowledge and understanding, and guide us throughout our lives. His love covers everything!
What glorious love the Father has bestowed upon you and me. He intends for every person to receive and experience this love.
I see from the first words of blessing the Father spoke to Adam in the Garden of Eden to the last words Jesus spoke to His disciples before He ascended to heaven, the message has been based on God’s love.
Words such as “be fruitful,” “multiply,” “replenish,” “have dominion” (Gen. 1:28, KJV) communicate God’s love for the world. And, “‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them'” (Matt. 28:19, NKJV), says to take the Father’s love to the world!
Every word Christ spoke and action He performed had something to do with the Father’s love for us. And that love always changed people’s lives.
That’s how each of us received God’s love, salvation and everlasting life. We heard and accepted the good news of Jesus Christ.
For most of us something changed immediately. And for all of us our lives have changed for eternity.
Now, because His love dwells in us it can come through us to people we encounter. And when it does, they too are changed!
“For God so loved the world” —from before the foundation of the earth until this very day—is indeed a wonderful phrase. His love changes everything!
Gloria Copeland is co-founder and vice president of Kenneth Copeland Ministries in Fort Worth, Texas. She and her husband, Kenneth, are known for their teachings on faith, healing and victorious Christian living. Their daily TV broadcast, Believer’s Voice of Victory, airs globally on more than 300 stations. Gloria is also an internationally known author whose works include To Know Him and Blessed Beyond Measure (Harrison House). To read past columns in Charisma by Gloria Copeland, log on at www.charismamag.com/copeland.
