by Karla Perry

Created on: February 22, 2011

It is amazingly common in Christian circles to struggle with the concept of God loving everybody. We so quickly forget that He loved us while we were yet sinners, before we knew His love and had fellowship with Him.  It is only because He first loved us that we experience His love. 

Somehow along the way we have become conditioned to think that His love only extends as far as the Christian community and no further.  This explains why we fail to treat those who do not know Him with His love.  We think we are to withhold love to those who are trapped in their sin.  When we do so, we withhold that which will set them free.  We present a judgmental God to them, instead of one who loves them sacrificially.

Jesus came across the crowd preparing to stone a woman caught in adultery and said that He who is without sin is the only one qualified to cast the first stone.  Then He, being such a One, set her free from such condemnation. 

The most well known verse of all the Scriptures is often the most forgotten. John 3:16 says that Jesus came not into the world to condemn the world, but because He loved the world desiring none to perish, but come to everlasting life. Somehow, we have taken up the mission of condemnation, rather than that of love. 

God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son to give His life for the world.  That one verse captures the whole message of the Gospel. God loves the world. He doesn’t just love Christians, or people that believe in God, or people that do good things. He loves everyone in the world. 

Love is not based on actions or belief of the recipient.  However, it is not experienced fully by the recipient until it is known.  When we come to the realization that God loves us, and see that He delights in us like a Father delights in his child we enter into something that sets us apart from our former way of living, thinking, and being.  We find we belong to the King and are considered by Him to be royal heirs of His domain.  This changes everything. 

Then when we have experienced this kind of love, we find we can love others with this love.  This is why Jesus said there are two greatest commandments that fulfill all the Law and the Prophets.  1) Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength.  2) Love your neighbor as yourself.

The first is only possible when we come to know His love, and the second is only possible when we practice the first.  Once you find yourself knowing the love of God there is no question as to whether He loves your neighbor for He will most certainly demonstrate His love to your neighbor through you.  

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