Focus: Free Love

Text: Hos.14:4

"I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him."

"God is love," John tells us. Love is more than what God does; it is what He is, essentially. It is more than a verb of doing or of action; it is a noun of being. Interestingly, God shows who He is by what He does, and it's even more interesting to know that God is more than what He does. What God does cannot absolutely explain who God is and all that He can do.

"God IS love," and He truly, thoroughly and timelessly loves. I say again and again that God loves:

*Freely,

*Fully,

*Faithfully,

*Firmly,

*Finally, and,

*Forevermore.

God loves you freely - it's love without fears, love without limits, love without conditions, love without logic, love without worries, love without sin or shortcomings, and love without imperfections.

God loves you for you. It is a unique kind of love by which God freely gives you, richly gives you all things to enjoy, and greatly bestows favors on you.

God speaks with the voice of love, speaks words of love, touches you with the hands of love, sees you with the lens or eyes of love, embraces you with the arms of love, listens to you with the ears of love, and forgives you with the heart of love.

God is not only love, and He does not only love, but He also pours forth His love into your heart by the Holy Spirit. John says, "We love him, because he first loved us" (1Jh.4:19). One interesting thing about this verse of Scripture is that the word 'him' is not in the original, meaning that it is not about us loving Him back, but about us loving at all. 

We are able to love at all, because Christ first loved us. He is our example, motivation and inspiration to love.

Loving Christ back or in return is already a given. It's only normal and reasonable to return love.

God loves you fully and finally, wholly and wholeheartedly. The psalmist declares, "Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: thou GREATLY enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water: thou preparest them corn, when thou hast so provided for it" (Ps.65:9). Loving and giving belong together. You can give without love, but you cannot love without giving. The psalmist says again, "And he increased his people greatly; and made them stronger than their enemies" (Ps.105:24). God's love is an ever-giving love. In His loving-kindness we see His loveliness - His pure and perfect beauty.

God's love is free love - nothing stopping its flow, nothing hindering its manifestation, and nothing conditioning its output or overflow. It saves the sinner and sanctifies the saint. It touches the heart and changes the worst of men. It is love that goes all the way - redeeming, restoring, reviving, recreating, and refreshing. God's love is the only love in the universe; all others are either mere counterfeits or imperfect imitations.

Open your heart to the free love of your God. It's love like no other. It's perfect and powerful. God doesn't love like men do. Man's love is a caricature of God's love. Embrace God's love and enjoy it to the utmost. His love is free - unfettered, unhindered and unconditional. It flows from His free will, and it ever abounds. It is boundless and timeless. It is a free-for-all love. You live by His love and in His love.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter