Steadfast Love
The Love of God is like light refracted by the facets of a diamond and split into the brilliant colors of the rainbow. 1 John 1:5 says, For God is light and in him is no darkness at all. The facets of the diamond of the Word of God split the love of God into the characteristics of God. 1 John 4:8 says, “God is love.” 1 Corinthians 13 lists the characteristics of love and since God is love, these are also the characteristics of God himself. In this “love chapter” the name “God our Father” could be substituted for the words “love” or “charity.” God and the Love of God is very patient, very kind. He is never haughty, never prideful, and never selfish, irritable, resentful, or rude. God suffers long and is kind; he is not easily provoked. He is always eager to believe the best. He doesn’t charge our sin nature against us. God and his love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth things. The love of God never faileth. Now abides faith, hope, and love…. But the greatest of these is love.
The conclusion of 1 Corinthians is “love never fails.” Steadfast characterizes God and the love of God. Steadfast means unwavering, true, never changing, firmly fixed in place. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is the manifestation of the love of God. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son… Steadfast is the most frequently used adjective for the love of God in the Revised Standard Version of the Old Testament. Psalm 6:4 says…Turn, O LORD, deliver my life; save me for the sake of your steadfast love. Save me because of thy mercy. Mercy is the result of the love of God…his forbearance doesn’t give us what we deserve. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ or Lord.
God saves us not because our nature is deserving of salvation. Our nature of the flesh is the nature of sin and death. However, His nature is the nature of steadfast love. He saves us because Loving kindness and tender mercy is his character, not ours. It’s not because of who we are but because who he is. Love is the nature of God himself.
The prodigal son is the story of the Love of God. The younger son said to his father, “I wish you were dead…..give me my inheritance as if you had already died.” The father gave him his inheritance. The prodigal son went away into a far country and wasted away his father’s fortune with riotous living. After he had run out of money, a famine overtook the land and he became destitute. As a Jew, he fell into the lowest point a Jew could fall. He joined himself with a pig farmer to tend the pigs. To the Jews, he was a pig himself. He became numbered among the pigs. He “feign did fill his belly with the husks which the swine did eat.” He had sunk to the level that he craved pig slop. Then he came to himself. He hit bottom and remembered that he wasn’t a pig….he was his father’s son. This is the point of repentance. He said to himself, my father’s hired servants live much better than this. He practiced his speech that he would tell his dad, “I’m no longer worthy to be thy son. Make me one of thy hired servants and I’ll serve you as a ranch hand.” Humility is required for repentance. He realized that he had broken the law and that the wages of sin is death. The Father saw his son approaching from afar off and ran to meet him. He threw his arms around his son as the son began his speech…. “Father I have sinned against you and against God.” The Father didn’t let his son finish his speech. He put a robe on him and put his family’s signet ring on his finger….. He rejoiced and said, “this my son was dead and is now alive.”
The message of the prodigal son is a picture of salvation. For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourself, it is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast. He sent his only begotten son, Jesus Christ to pay the price of our sin. For he who was without sin was made the perfect sacrifice for sin on our behalf that we may be made the righteousness of God in him.
When you ask most men, “what do you think God thinks of you?” Most men will answer, “I think he’s disappointed in me.” However when we repent and return to our Lord with a broken and a contrite heart, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Is your concept of God that he is a hard taskmaster? When David sinned and confessed in repentance, he appealed to God’s character of steadfast love, mercy, and compassion. After he had committed adultery with Bathsheba and ordered her husband’s murder, David said, “against thee and thee only have I sinned.”
God loves to forgive those who repent. According to 1 John 3, even though our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. Like the prodigal son who returned to his father in repentance, he will embrace us in his arms.
The devil is the accuser and the deceiver. He says, you’re not deserving of grace, mercy, forgiveness. Your sins have condemned you to death. However, Romans 8 says, who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? Who is he who condemns? Is it Christ who justified, whom God raised from the dead? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall persecution or famine or distress or nakedness or peril or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither life nor death nor Angels nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The assurance of salvation is according to the Word of God. For if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the lord Jesus and shalt believe in thy heart that God has raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved. Herein is the love of God made perfect…for while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Salvation is none of me and all of thee….. Salvation is the result of his great love whereby he loved us. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth In him should not perish, but have everlasting life. This is amazing grace….this is His steadfast love.
We love him because he first loved us. And as we by his gift of grace love him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, may we ever live to the praise of the glory of His grace!
Your brother in Christ,
MIchael