It is said that God loves us but what type of love is this? Is it the same love that a person has for their spouse, children, parents or even favorite hobby? Or could God’s love be much deeper than that, beyond our understanding and to the point that we could say that God is deeply in love with me or even crazy in love with me? Let’s examine the scriptures to see what we find.
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Crazy Love
John 3:16; Romans 8:38-39
When we hear, the phrase crazy love or that someone is crazy in love with a person, we think of a person that is madly in love with an individual, this person is head over hills, we think about extreme love. I envision that guy or girl before cell phones, sitting by his or hear landline phone just hoping that the girl he has been dating will call and when she calls they spend the whole night talking. We see crazy love when that husband or wife is sick in the hospital and their spouse refuses to leave their side. That is not standard love, we can’t just call that regular love but that is deep love, that is crazy love.
Definition: So when I use the term crazy love today, we are often describing a person’s behavior or the things beyond reason that one does to express their love
Do you know that God crazy loves or has a deep love and affection for you?
On Wednesday night, my family and I were driving back from the mission, and I told Serenity, “I am just now really understanding that God is deeply in love with me, crazy in love with me” and she said, really, you didn’t know that. And so I went on to explain to her that I knew that God loves me but that God is now giving me a deeper understanding of that love.
See I have always known that God loves me, it is all throughout the scriptures and not only is it all throughout the scriptures but in this commercialized Christianity of bumper stickers and T-shirts, you see it everywhere “God is love”, “God loves you” and for some reason, my heart grew dull of God’s love for me, not his general, but his love for me individually and specifically.
But God has since knocked me off my feet by giving me a deeper understanding of his love. It feels like I was standing on the shores of the beach and giant wave of God’s love just knocked me to the ground. It is all I think about right now, I am in awe by it.
But I wonder, do you feel this way? And I know the customary answer is yes, I know that God loves me but do you really know. If you grew up in church or have been in church for awhile, I know that you heard it a ton of times. I know that you have sang the song, “Jesus loves me this I know”. Some of us from childhood we are taught God loves me, God loves me. But do you really know, not that he loves you but that he is madly, crazy in love with you? I was afraid to actually preach this message and say what I am saying to you because I thought that it was to cliché, to seeker sensitive, to much of a preaches and cream message but when I look at the scriptures, I see that it is everywhere, particularly in the New testament, it was like that was God’s main point, that I love you, I love you.
I mean just look at John 3:16—-The verse that even many self proclaimed atheist can quote to you.
God so loved the world, that he gave his only son.
God so loved the world??????,
the “so loved” is like saying————- in this manner God loved the world or—————— by this way, God loved the world that he gave his only Son.
Example: Imagine if I was going to describe a husband’s love for his wife. And I said, this guy Jack here is so in love with his wife, that he flew her to Paris on a first class flight and they stayed in a diamond rated hotel, they did this and that. What we are saying in this example is that this Husbands love for his wife was expressed by an action that he did.
And in our society, this is how love is expressed, it is an affection of the heart with action and more times than not, that action is expressed in dollars and cents or material things, not always, but often.
And I believe that we take this same material, dollars and cents idea of love and apply it to God and when we do that we cheapen God’s love to where it’s not as valuable.
I hear people say, I know that God loves me because of the many blessing that has giving me, my children, he woke me up this morning. There is food on the table, I have shelter. He has giving me a car and job, a husband and a wife. These are all blessings from God but the in scriptures, particularly in the New Testament; these things are sometimes described as God’s goodness or even His common grace.
For example, Act 14:16-17—-Here, the Apostle Paul is preaching to a gentile crowd and look what he tells them: He did good—rain, fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.
Now, God’s goodness flows out of His love, so you can say that these things that he gives, his goodness is a subset of His love but the epitome of His love, the love that is so prominently preach in the gospel, is not expressed in food and clothing.
For example, John 3:16 it does not say that God so loved the world that he gave you food and sunshine, it does not say that God so love the world that he gave you rain and clothing. These things are good but they don’t properly describe God’s love.
See there is nothing in the created universe that properly describes God’s love for us, you can take the most valuable thing on the planet, whatever that is and it would not properly describe God’s love.
So God is saying in John 3:16, since I am the most valuable thing, the best and only thing that I can give the world to show my love and affection for it is myself!!!!!!!!!
In the early 2000’s there was a very popular song by Vanessa Carlton called “A thousand miles”
“And you know I’d walk a thousand miles if I could just see you tonight” The Father is sending the Son, who is of the same nature, same power, eternally existing as evidence of his love for us and you can make that personal and say his love for me. See this is a crazy, deeply affectionate, out of this world, love that God has for you. How else can it be explained? We will get to the why a little bit later. But just think on that, God is madly in love with me!!!!!
Go to 1 John 4:16—We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us.
How many of you really believe this, that God has a deep, deep affectionate love for you?
This is an essential truth for the Christian to know and guess what, there is nothing I can say or do to make you understand this or know this…….as we read a few weeks ago in Romans 5:5 that this is the work of the Holy Spirit to shed God’s upon your heart.
And when you know this love or grow in the knowledge of this love, it changes everything, your life!!!. This why Paul said 2 Corinthians 5:14—That the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died.
Now notice this, in 1 John 4:7-16- John is describing How God’s love for him (the believer) should so overwhelm them that it affects how they love and treat others.
And then in 2 Corinthians 5:14—Paul said the love of Christ controls him.
So when I read these verses together, I come to the conclusion that a person cannot say that I know the love of God or have encounter the love of God and not see a change in there own love for others.
I want you to notice something, the last verse that I quoted, 2 Corinthians 5:14, here Paul is talking about Christ love for us and in John 3:16, Jesus is talking about the Fathers love for us.
Do you see the union of the Trinity working here? Father deeply loves you and that is evidenced by Him sending his Son to die for you. Jesus, out of obedience and a deep affectionate love for his Father beyond understanding and a Crazy love for us dies for us. In John 10:15- Jesus said that he lays down his life for the sheep which let you know who the “world” is in John 3:16—the Church, the elect and the Holy Spirit goes and brings us to this love by pouring it out in our heart……the economy of the Trinity. This is Crazy, made love that the Godhead or Trinity has for you.
And it gets better!!!!!!!!!! Because the scriptures states that this love is never ending-Romans 8:39-38.
“Nothing can separate us from God’s love toward us in Christ Jesus”
In these verses, Paul by way of the Holy Spirit is really trying to show the unrelenting love of God in Christ for us and he does it by giving us the opposite of two extremes
Death and Life- Paul is trying to eliminate any doubt.
Not even death will bring about a separation of God’s love for me. In the 1600s there was very popular book in Europe, this book is called “Foxe’s Book of Martyrs” and this book is full of the sufferings and death that many Christians endured for the sake of the Gospel. And many of these Christians died boldly, they understood and knew as John said “the love that God has for them” and that not even death would break the grip of God’s hand on them but death would actually bring them closer to God. As Paul said in 2 Corinthian 5:8- Absent from the body present with the Lord.
Angel’s or Principalities
There is some discussion on this part of the verse, it could be say that Paul here, like the previous verse, is pointing out two extremes, Good Angels and Bad Angels, Demons, satan and that these two things and nothing in between can stop God’s love for you in Christ. But then when you look at it from that point, then the question is why would good angels want try to stop God’s love of you. So this verse could also be taken to mean, demons, devils when the term angel is used civil government, earthly rulers when principalities is used, either way, the point still remains, not is going to stop God from loving you.
I jokingly say that this a verse or thought that Satan has never considered because he is constantly trying to get believers to get outside the will of God thinking that it going to bring a stop to God’s love for us.
For example, I think about Peter, how Satan tries to tempt him to despair. Peter is this big bold Christian that thinks he ready to do anything for Christ, be then he is scared away by a little servant girl, denies knowing Christ. But what happens when Jesus meets him again? Did satan’s temptation or the frailty of Peter’s flesh change Christ love for him?……..No! The Love of Christ for his sheep is unmovable.
Now I hope this goes without saying that if you are disobedient to the Lord, he will discipline you, I am not saying that you can go out and live like whatever and God’s is fine with it….out of his unrelenting love he will correct you to bring you back in line.
Nor any other created thing—
The King James Version reads: “Any other creature” The Greek for creature—-Ktis-is the same word that Jesus uses in Mark 16:15 where he tells the disciple to “Go into the world and preach the gospel to every creature(Ktis-is). It is also the same word that Paul uses in 2 Corinthin 5:17 where he said “if any man be in Christ he is a new creature”.
So when Paul said that not creature will stop God from loving us, he is referring to the created order, humans, people. The reason why I highlight this word is because when I read this part of the verse, I think about my ancestors who were slaves here in America.
“And even though the American society at the time did not love them and treated them as less than a person, many of them knew that even if America did not love me, it had no affect on God’s love for me”.
And so some of the deepest most sincere faith can be found in the black slaves in America’s apartheid era. I have even heard it said that some of the realest, most sincere forms of Christianity can be found in the black church because of what they have had to endure here in America over the years.
This verse also lends itself to that boy or girl, man or woman, that was not loved by their mother or father and that even if you were not loved by their parents that has no bearing on God’s love them, your parents lack of love for you can’t affect God’s love for you.
Nothing can separate us from the Love of God which is in Christ Jesus.
But Why? Why does God love me so? Why is he so madly in love with little old me that he would reveal his son in me and send him to die for me?
Well we know that it is not because of something we did, or because we are smart, cute—-Paul tell us in Romans 7 that there is nothing good in us.
So why then does he love us so? If Mathew 11:25-26 gives us any indication of this it is because it makes him happy!
It brings him pleasure to love you, it brings him pleasure to open the eyes of your blind hearts and reveal his son in you.
Think about it……God finds pleasure in loving you! The God who created the universe not only is mindful of you but has deep affections for you because it brings him pleasure to-do so.
Thank you God for pursuing your pleasure!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now I want you to add a couple of things up in your mind:
- We see that God has deep out of this world and love and affections for us as evidence by the Father Sending his Son to die for our sins.
- God so loved us that he allowed us to become Children of God, take on his name and be heirs to the Kingdom.—As stated in 1 John 3:1
- We are considered to be God’s treasured possession (Titus 2:14).
- Think about this, God is choosing you to be his bride. And that Jesus so loves his bride that he dies for her, to cleanse that she maybe beautiful on his wedding day. Ephesians 5:26-27
When you add all of this up, what do you think should be our response? Praise unto God, a life submitted unto Christ Jesus for His love, for providing a way for us to be recipient to the heavenly blessing.
Which brings us to the second reason why God so crazy in love with us……It brings Him the most Glory to do so.
Ephesians 1:5-6
So God loves us, choosing us, electing us to be object of His love, to be adopted into his family to the praise of the Glory of His grace.
Another way to understand this is God is God-Centered, he is not you or me centered, the universe does not revolve around me or you but it revolves around God.
You especially see this in the Old Testament.
Ezekiel 36:22-23 for my name’s sake
Thank God that He is God-centered and that he pursues His own glory.
If God did not purse His own Glory, then there would be no me, no you, no earth because all of it was created for His Glory alone. You would not exist if God was not centered on Himself.
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