Love Without Measure!

I remember seeing a greeting card when I was younger. On the front it had a picture of a cactus with lots of thorns on it with the caption:  

Then, when you open the card, it said:  

Our human love and the love of others towards us is not perfect and can cause us pain.  It can even cause us to become a bit prickly ourselves and make it hard for us to be open to the love of others.  

But God is not like this.  He will never hurt you or break your heart.  People have this idea that they need to perform, strive, act so they can become good enough for God to love them.  This could not be further from the truth.  And to be honest, if it was about our goodness to earn His love, then we would never be good enough.  The really good news is that He loves us without condition.  Why?  Because that is who He is.  He is love!  

John 4:16 ESV - So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

The only requirement or qualification for you to be loved by God is.. wait for it.. you have to be a sinner.  Really?  Yes, He only takes sinners - not those who are still trying to clean up their lives by their own effort - before coming to Him.  He wants you to come just as you are so He can help you clean up your life.  He knew we were incapable of getting it right on our own and so He made it easy.  If you are a sinner, then come.  He is waiting with open arms.

Rom 5:6-8 ESB: 

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

I said without condition.  That is not totally true though.  He wants you to choose Him and to come freely.  And then He wants you to fulfil the “why” of Him loving and saving you.  Do you know why He loves you and why He saved you?  Again, because He is love.  The reason why He saved you is because He wants to have a relationship with you.  He wants a family, children who love Him.  He wants to fellowship with you.  That is also the main thing you are called to do:

1 Cor 1:9 ESV - 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

1 John 1:3-4 ESV:

3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

I was listening to someone speaking about Mat 18 the other day about the one lost sheep and how the shepherd leaves the 99 behind to go look for the one that is lost.  I always looked at that portion of scripture from the point of me already being saved.  But the other day it dawned on me that the Lord left 99 other sheep to come after me, just like He left 99 others to come looking for you.  Not one of us is insignificant in His eyes.  He formed us before the foundation of the world and put precious things into us.  He knows that His family will not be complete if even one sheep is missing.  He loves us, that is why He comes after us.

Rev 1:4-6 ESV:

6 Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood 6 and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

That was all part of the introduction as I want to get to the fact that God’s love for us is without measure. 

The other day I was thinking of God's love for me when I heard Him say “Love without measure”.  Immediately I saw measuring cups.  Those you use when baking.  They help to get an accurate measure of the ingredients so your baking will be perfect.  As I thought about the measuring cup, He said that He doesn't measure His love for me.  It has no beginning, and it has no end.  It cannot be measured.  

But then I remembered that in Eph 3 from verse 18, Paul prays that we may get a revelation of the dimensions of this love:

18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 

God’s love for us has breadth, length, height and depth.  It has dimensions, but it still cannot be measured.  You need revelation of the vastness of it.  Then Paul continues to say that he prays that we will KNOW the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.  How do you know something that surpasses knowledge of that thing?  How do you know something that is beyond knowing?  You know it by experiencing it.  You experience a love that has no beginning and has no end, that even though it has dimensions, it cannot be measured.  Good thing he said that it surpasses knowledge because it is beyond measure but also beyond comprehension.

Then, as I was still thinking about how huge this love really is, I felt directed to look up the words “without measure” in the dictionary.  Interestingly it said, “without comparison”.  This brings a whole new dimension to God’s great love for us.  He doesn’t compare us to each other and then says that I am not deserving of the same experience and depth of His love as someone else.  He doesn’t say that He loves us all the same either, but rather that because He is love, He loves us uniquely.  I guess we each get to see unique aspects of His love.   

Lastly, as His love is without comparison, it cannot be compared to the love of anyone else.  Let me put it bluntly - no one can love you the way God loves you - no matter who it is.  People are not perfect and so they love with an imperfect love.  But, because God is love, His love for us cannot fail because He cannot fail.

Rom 8:37-39 ESV:

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So now when you get a greeting card, and it asks “How does God love you? You can know that He loves you:

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