(Download Reflection “Eternal Love”)

By Rev. Kathleen Ordiway, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Niagara Falls
Niagara Ministerial Council, Board Member CMi

There’s this Christian song by JJ Heller called “What Love Really Means”.  In verse one a young boy (who has probably been abused by a parent or maybe living in a foster home) doesn’t know what it feels like to be loved.  He asks God to send someone to him that will love him.  In verse two, a woman’s husband has left her.  She thinks if only she was thinner, maybe he wouldn’t have left her.  They both cry out, “Who will love me for me, not for what I have done or what I will become.  Who will love me for me, ‘cause nobody has shown me what love really means.”  They feel abandoned, unlovable, alone.

And then verse three finds a man in prison, regretting all that he has done in his life and he cries out from the depths of his soul, “Oh, Lord, forgive me.”  And somewhere deep inside him, God says to him, “I know you’ve murdered and I know you’ve lied and I have watched you suffer all of your life, and now that you’ll listen I’ll tell you that I will love you for you, not for what you have done, or what you will become.  I will love you for you.  I will give you the love that you never knew.”

That’s the message God has for each of us.  Do you know that there’s nothing you can do to make God love you and there’s nothing you can do to make God stop loving you?   God is our Father and we are His children.  He has a love for you that is eternal and unchangeable.

Is God happy with our behavior?  Not always.  Does God yearn to have us ask for forgiveness?  Absolutely.  Does God want us to call out to Him?  Without a doubt. 

Romans 5:8:  But God demonstrates His own loves toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 

And Romans 8:37-39:  But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

There are times in each of our lives when we feel alone, abandoned, not worthy of love.  BELIEVE that you are not alone.  God is always present, always loving.  He will never desert you.  God loves you for you.  Know that. Believe that.