God loves everything and everyone He has created.
What He does not love is the horrible distortions and destruction, brought to pass by selfishness on the part of both spiritual entities and His human children, since His perfect universe exploded forth, originally birthed by and in His limitless love!
Looking honestly at the full “breadth and length and height and depth” of the love of God, we can easily see that, by our nature and through our experiences, we obviously fall far short of the kind and scope of His inimitable and humanly unattainable love.
In other words, in our thoughts, words, and deeds, we each and all fall far short of this universal love God has toward His entire creation.
Our learning curve must be fully lifelong, to move toward loving like Jesus. As we have already noted, this special agape love of God begins to grow in us, as we open up to receive it from Him. As we begin to be filled with Jesus’ light and love, we are also being transformed to share the love with other people in our lives.
Growing in love, we learn to include many different members among our local gatherings of believers, as fellow travelers through this life, creating true caring communities that share Jesus’ love with all those around us.
We also learn to love other like-minded believers who may be scattered abroad, even across the entire earth. These followers of Jesus are like us in both our doctrinal outlook and the practice of our faith, so that we have a similar church culture, background, and perspective on how to live out what Jesus and the Scriptures teach.
God has many higher levels of love for us to learn and grow in, as expressed in what has been called His “High Priestly Prayer” recorded for us as chapter 17 of the Gospel of John. This was the culmination of that portentous gathering of the apostles and disciples for the Last Supper with Jesus.
Although that evening is recorded in all 4 Gospels, John gives much greater detail concerning the teachings, revelations, prophetic insights, and commands of Jesus given at that time to His followers.
It is His High Priestly Prayer which focuses His heartfelt desires for the protection, proclamation, and propagation of His people, both at that time and into the distant future.
In this unique prayer to His heavenly Father, Jesus refers to the multi-generational transmission of His message and His will for His followers in all times and in all places, yet to be unfolded:
JOHN 17:20 For these alone I do not pray [it is not for their sake only that I make this request], but for all those who will ever come to believe in (trust in, cling to, rely on) Me through their word and teaching, 21That they all may be one, [just] as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be one in Us, so that the world may believe and be convinced that You have sent Me.
Each of us, and every believer who has existed since this prayer was spoken by Jesus, is included in the words He proclaimed that night!
Everyone who names the Name of Jesus as their Lord, does so based on the fact that they have heard of Him, through their words and teachings that are recorded in the Bible.
These are His dedicated followers of whom He speaks, by virtue of the fact that they trust in, cling to, and rely on Jesus. It is these disciples who Jesus desires to become one, united not only in purpose but in His love.
We know that the unity spoken of by Jesus in His prayer, must be completely enveloped in His divine love, not simply holding to certain doctrines and practices. As recorded in John’s Gospel, Jesus had already shared in many ways that very evening, about receiving His love, flowing in His love, and living out His love for others in all that we do.
Paul underscores Jesus’ stated views that unity must be endued and imbued with the divine love of God, when he writes to the Galatians, in chapter 5:6, where we are told “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself in love.”
John, Jesus’ beloved disciple, also confirms that everything done by believers must be done in love, when he writes in 1 John 4:8, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
If we are each growing in love, and if our local fellowships are growing in love toward greater unity with all other dedicated followers of Jesus, both within our localities, our areas, our regions, our nations, and with all the people of Jesus throughout the world, we are moving closer to what Jesus prayed for: true unity around Him in His love!
As we are drawn by the Spirit of God into this kind of loving unity, we somehow supernaturally become more completely connected to the union of our Father God, and His only begotten God the Son, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
Our loving unity becomes a stronger and more visible reflection of the Oneness of the Persons of the Triune Godhead. This spiritually rooted and grounded unity makes the love of God in sending His Son, Jesus, into the earth increasingly able to be received and believed by many more people.
As the people of this world see God’s divine love shared among His children, overcoming all human divisiveness and selfishness, they will begin to be drawn to Him in powerful ways.
When many who trust Jesus for their salvation, somehow grow to the point, that they are able to place the Person of Jesus and His work of redemption above being right about lesser aspects of doctrine, they will see Jesus lifted up from the earth by this shared love, and will come to the greatest love of all.
This kind of love cannot stop there. We are called to rise up with Jesus, to love all people everywhere, whether His followers or not.
This does not mean that we must agree with them or step away at all from our faith and what Jesus and the Bible teach. It simply means that we love them no matter what they believe or who they are. Our love from Jesus, is never to be diminished by anything about the other person, or it is not God’s supernatural agape love.
Any limitations we place on love, based on any criteria, causes it to be less than the love of Jesus. We know that to go beyond our limitations is to walk by faith and to receive His love when we just don’t have or just can’t do it!
This also includes loving His created order, His whole world in which we live. If we come to realize that we are called to doing all that we do with love, we will treat everything: animal, vegetable, or mineral with thanksgiving to our God, and with care and concern.
This caring way with all things, is an extension of the love God has placed within us, to return His love for us back to Him, but also to encompass all that He has made and all that He does.
The ultimate reality of love, is that God is so good and so worthy of our love, that He also teaches us to love and gives us the enabling grace to begin to love all the people and all the things He has made and loves continually!
Neil Uniacke
Executive Director
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