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    The Love of God
    The Love of God
    The Love of God
    Ebook160 pages2 hours

    The Love of God

    By Bob Loveys

    ()

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    About this ebook

    This book details my experiences as a Christian over the last 40+ years. It is my attempt to show people the reality of God and the way he interacts with me through my life. It explains the many ways He guides me through life and explains the love and power that he exhibits in and through my life and what is available to every believer. It aims to cross the barrier of indecision for the unbeliever. To hopefully convince them that God is real and necessary to everyone’s lives particularly during the dark days we are living in.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherXlibris AU
    Release dateMay 5, 2024
    ISBN9798369495926
    The Love of God

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      Book preview

      The Love of God - Bob Loveys

      Copyright © 2024 by Bob Loveys.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

      NOTE: All; Biblical text references are taken from the New International Version unless otherwise stated

      Rev. date: 04/17/2024

      Xlibris

      AU TFN: 1 800 844 927 (Toll Free inside Australia)

      AU Local: (02) 8310 8187 (+61 2 8310 8187 from outside Australia)

      www.Xlibris.com.au

      858880

      CONTENTS

      Dedication

      Foreword

      Introduction

      Chapter 1     Getting To Know God

      Chapter 2     Characteristics Of God’s Love

      Chapter 3     Does It Work?

      Chapter 4     How Complete Is His Love

      Chapter 5     Why Me?

      Chapter 6     Talking To And Hearing From God

      Chapter 7     Love And………………………….

      Chapter 8     Jesus Our Example

      Chapter 9     Where to from Here

      Chapter 10   The World Wide Net of Love

      Your Experiences with God

      DEDICATION

      This book is dedicated to God. I pray that it will bring

      glory to him through everyone who reads it.

      FOREWORD

      Who is qualified to write about the love of God? How many of us could claim to have appropriated the full extent of his love? Only God knows the answer to the second question, yet everyone who believes in him has experienced that love. I have no degrees in Theology or full time College diplomas to stand on, only 40 plus years of being a Christian and some part time courses that have helped me grow in understanding and the experiences of God’s love. This has built in me a desire to share what I know.

      Why take on such an awesome project?

      God’s love is woven into many books and church sermons on subjects covering various aspects of the Christian way of life because it is central to it all. I would like to look at it the other way and take God’s love as the subject and write about the many ways God’s love works in our lives and the world today. If there is one thing we need to do it is to understand that love as best we can and apply it to our lives. Through his love working in us we can make the world, and particularly our world, a better place.

      I hope this book will show something of the magnificent heart of God to people who know him and those who don’t.

      You may like to add some of your own understanding and experience to what I have written and so at the end of the book there is a separate section of blank pages for you.

      INTRODUCTION

      The love of God is the central theme of the whole Bible, it is what God is (1 John 4.8). It is the greatest love story ever told and it is still unfolding today. The crucial centrality of God’s love for his creation including mankind is indicated by the many references throughout the Old and New Testaments. The New International Version (Study Bible) has over 750 references to love and its conjugations. Only God has more references than that. So God thinks it is vitally important!!

      If we can understand God’s love in all its immensity(Ephesians 3.18/19) and store a portion of it (like refined gold) in our hearts, then we will be positioned for greatness in this life. Able to work with God in the end times plan for the World in whatever dimension he has planned for our lives. And what an adventure it will be.

      An ever expanding view of what God sees and our extraordinary ability to undertake anything God directs us towards through His awesome power within us and around us. As 1 Corinthians 2.9 says No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. The Bible is stating absolutes here – NO ONE, not even one person since time began has been able to conceive what God’s plan for his or her life was going to be. That makes our relationship with God the most exciting adventure of our lives. Just thinking about that fires me up. I don’t want to ruin anything God has planned for me and neither should you. Provided we have accepted Christ as our Saviour and been filled with his Spirit we have the potential to walk God’s shining path to victory after victory and leave this life completely fulfilled and having completed all God planned for us to accomplish.

      To realise that potential we have to obey God’s commands, which comes back to our love for him. Jesus is quoted in the very first book of the New Testament as saying love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it. Love your neighbour as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments(Matthew 22 v37-40). If love is that important to God then we have an obligation to learn and understand it. As we diligently do that, it will increasingly become part of us and we will be gradually able to apply it to everybody and all situations around us. God’s love becomes our love – an irresistible force that affects everything around it. – for good!

      So let’s get started!

      1

      GETTING TO KNOW GOD

      Setting the Scene

      You can’t love God unless you get to know him. And although he loves you he can’t show his love to you unless you get to know him. He is not distant and unapproachable even though he is seated in the heavens. Far from it. He is near¹. What sort of a loving God would he be if he wouldn’t communicate with us, relate to us and care for us continually. If that were so we would have a right to question the truth of his Word because Psalm 119.64 says The Earth is filled with your love. But we don’t have to doubt the Bible, we have a God who is intimately involved with his creation and in particular with those who love him. He longs to be with us, He made us so that we could have fellowship with him. That was the whole point of him creating mankind. We are the pinnacle of his creation. Right back at the time of Adam and Eve, God walked and talked with them in the Garden of Eden. (Genesis Ch.3v 9-19). He enjoys our company and the more of us there are responding to him the more we all get to enjoy him and he us. He would hate to be separated from us, in fact Romans 8.35-39 says Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present or the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. What a powerful statement that is. NOTHING will take his love away from you EVER! That should give you confidence to trust him. The evidence of this is in Jesus death on the cross for us and can also be seen in his relationship with the disciples. John 15.9 says As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you, now remain in my love. If you obey my commands you will remain in my love.

      You can see from this that God is putting the onus on us. He has offered us his love and all the blessings that come with it but it is up to us to accept and receive what he has offered us. He is standing there with a beautiful gift wrapped present but if we don’t reach out and take it we lose out. How would you feel if you lovingly bought a beautiful present for one of your children and were thrilled and excited about giving it only to find that child turned away and ignored it. Pretty hurtful eh!

      God’s love is different to our love. God’s love in the Greek is Agape which means unconditional. He is constant and unfailing whereas we tend to allow emotions and circumstances to affect how we love someone. We tend to blow hot and cold. God knows what we are like and that’s why he says remain in my love. With God’s love within us (Romans 5.5) and us exercising that love, we can stand above all the trials of life, and be constant towards God and towards each other. That makes a huge difference to our relationships and I would suggest if followed diligently would cut the divorce rate dramatically.

      God’s kind of love is impossible you might say, after all God gave me emotions and He knows how difficult life can be down here. Yes He does know but he never asks anything of us that can’t be done. So with God’s love and power within us and his instructions as to how to live the love life in the Bible, we can do it. We just have to decide we will do it and learn what it involves. That’s not an overnight change. It takes a lifetime of learning and application, but there is no greater reward than to live the love life.

      So how do we get to know God and what makes his love so real, so fulfilling and rewarding?

      Well, as in any relationship, you firstly have to meet Him – I don’t mean physically, like walk up and shake his hand! – but by going to church, reading the Bible and asking him to be a part of your life. It’s a bit like dating and getting married really. When you date somebody there is an attraction there but you are also sussing them out. What sort of a person is he/she, what characteristics and personality does this person have. Do I like the way they are. Do we relate to each other well? If you do, the relationship grows stronger and if he/she is Mr or Mrs Right the chances are you will get married. It is a process with great and lifelong rewards where the bond grows stronger over the years.

      It is just the same with God. He has made the first move by sending Jesus down here to explain his love, so now it is up to us. Do we want to accept his approach or not. Whichever way you decide to use to get to know him, he is ready and waiting for you. He will always respond to a searching heart².

      It may be that your life has gone downhill so far that you are desperate for help. Many come to God that way and, again, he will always reach out to you. He will always be there for you. Just ask him to show himself to you and he will, that’s his heart and his desire. He can’t wait to pour his love all over you. Don’t worry about all the things you’ve done wrong in your life – he is far more interested in you than in your mistakes. Just tell him you’re sorry for the past and that you want to start again. He’ll accept you with open arms and great joy³. You may have heard people speak of The Sinners Prayer well, that’s what you are doing. You’re asking God to take away all your sins, committing to do your best not to repeat them and acknowledging that Jesus, as God’s Son, is able to grant your request. In so doing you trade your past for his future. If you have never said the sinners prayer, why not do it now. Trust God to help you once you have and he will make sure his loving nature is revealed to you. It will be like taking a blindfold off your eyes - it’s a WOW! experience.

      I did that over 40years ago and I can

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