God's Perfect Love

Dear friends, let us continually love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born from God and knows God.
The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
This is how God's love was revealed among us: God sent his unique Son into the world so that we might live through him. (1 John 4:7-9)

We were created to be members of Heavenly Father's family and recipients of His perfect love. Through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus, He demonstrated just how much He loves us. Jesus demonstrated Heavenly Father's mercy, kindness and love and became our role model so that we must imitate Jesus in everything we do.

The Roman soldier who asked Jesus to heal his servant. The soldier's request wasn't ignored because he wasn't one of the Jews, which were God's chosen people. Seeing the man's genuine faith, the Lord granted his request out of love for him. This is God's perfect love.

Jesus also extended His forgiving loving-kindness to the crucified thief who confessed his guilt and expressed faith in Christ.

Apostle Paul was convinced that Jesus wasn't the promised Messiah. Paul believed His followers must be stopped. To that end, Paul persecuted the Christian Jews and uttered murderous threats against the church. God's love didn't even skip over one so violently opposed to His children. On the road to Damascus, the Lord appeared to Paul with an offer of salvation and gave him a great work to do. He asked Paul to spread His word to the Gentile world.

One thing that God's love bring about is the removal of imperfectness from us because

but when perfect comes, the imperfect disappears (1 Cor 13:10)

The human mind can't fully comprehend the divine love. In Christ, thieves, persecutors, and those who may look like outsiders are all equally loved.

and that Christ would make his home in your hearts through faith. Then, having been rooted and grounded in love,
you will be able to understand, along with all the saints, what is wide, long, high, and deep-
that is, you will know the love of Christ, which goes far beyond knowledge, and will be filled with all the fullness of God. (Eph 3:17-19)

The Lord doesn't base His love for us on our character or achievements. We know this because of God's promise in John 3:16 and His action in sending Jesus to die in our place.

The Savior's dealings with people show us the depth of God's love. Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus' disciples, ministered closely with the Lord for three years. In the end, Judas chose to betray Jesus. Even though Jesus knew what Judas would do, He never rejected him.

In another example of God's love, a woman was about to be stoned for committing adultery. She was condemned by the religious leaders. Jesus stepped in to protect her. Then, in love, He commanded her to sin no more.

And consider Peter. He loved Jesus and desired to follow Him always. In a moment of weakness however, Peter denied even knowing Christ. Jesus knew in advance the disciple would do this. But Jesus' love for the man didn't waver. In fact Jesus proved his love by appearing to Peter after the resurrection. Jesus gave Peter a prominent place in developing the church.

Two final examples of God's love include Zacchaeus, the greedy tax collector. He took advantage of his fellow citizens. And the Samaritan woman involved with a string of broken relationships and an immoral lifestyle. These facts didn't stop Jesus from approaching each of them and offering His forgiving love.

No one is beyond the reach of God's love. Through faith in Him, everyone, even the worst of sinners, can experience love's richness as His children