THE ETERNAL LOVE OF GOD
The steadfast love of the Lord never ends. His mercies never end, either. That is what the Bible says in Lamentations 3:22. His love never ceases. His mercy never ends. Just as God himself is eternal, his love is eternal.
God cannot cease to exist. If he had not always existed, and if he could ever cease to exist, this universe would not be here. If there was ever a time when nothing existed, nothing would exist now. Nothing can come from nothing. So an intelligent being has always been here. And that “intelligent being” is God. He has always existed.
But another thing to remember is that he cannot cease to exist. If he could, then the universe would have ceased along with him. Because someone must not only create it, someone must sustain it. The creation—the universe and everything in it—proves the existence of God. There is no question about that. But it also proves the eternality of God. The fact that he has always existed and always will.
Psalm 41:13 says he is God “from everlasting to everlasting.” He had no beginning, and he will have no end. You do not understand that? Of course you don’t. We are confined by the limits of time, and our minds cannot comprehend anything outside of that. No one understands everything about God.
But one simple, logical conclusion remains. One that we can understand. Someone has been here the whole time. Someone has had to be here the whole time. Nothing can come from nothing. But the universe proves, not only the existence of God, and the fact that God is eternal, but also the power of God. The universe proves that he is an all-powerful God.
The Bible tells us that Christ Jesus upholds all things by the word of his power (Hebrews 1:3). “All things” means everything in the universe. There is a reason that there is order in the universe rather than chaos. And that is because God upholds it.
I doubt many of us think of this as much as we should. Being thankful for the fact that God does not retaliate in anger to all of the sin and all of the ways that he is ignored. People even mock him daily. But he is patient and long-suffering. And while there will come a day when people will have to answer for that, the reason that we exist right now and the universe exists right now is because he is patient and kind.
He wants people to be saved. He has not forgotten his promise to return and take vengeance on his adversaries. But he is long-suffering to us. Patient and kind. He does not want us to perish. In some way beyond our ability to understand, his delay means more opportunities for repentance (2 Peter 3:9).
Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world, but to save it (John 3:17). The world was condemned because of sin before he got here to live as a man on this earth. We are already condemned (John 3:18). And that condemnation comes from what we have done, not because of what he has done. What he has done has brought salvation. What we have done brings condemnation. And only he can rescue us from it.
He is a Savior who saves. That is simple to understand, is it not? Why does the Bible call him Savior? Because he saves. Why did he come into the world? He came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10). He sought us in order to save us. He sought us. That means that we did not ascend into heaven to bring a savior down (Romans 10:6). We did not ask God to save us. We did not ask God to develop a plan of salvation. That is all from him. That all proceeds from his loving and concerned heart.
Jesus came into the world to save us because God sent him into the world to save us. Because he willingly came into the world to save us. Because it was God‘s will that we be saved. That is an amazing thought. So let us think about it daily.
Dewayne Dunaway
