The love of God in Christian preaching emphasizes a deep, relational affection that transcends sight and is expressed through commitment, obedience, and selfless devotion (1 John 4:7-8). Illustrations often contrast worldly attachments with divine love, using images like adoption, rootedness, and flowing water to show how God's love transforms and sustains believers (Romans 5:5).
We can love God unseen because we receive His gifts, just as we love unseen givers.
Unseen, yet loved. A kind mother had one day been talking with her little girl about the duty of loving God. The child replied, "Mother, I have never seen God; how can I love Him?" The mother made no answer then.
A few days after, she received a package from a friend who lived a great way off; and in the package was a beautiful picture-book for the little girl. The child took the book and was for some time entirely engrossed in looking at the pictures, but soon she exclaimed, "Oh, mother! How I do love the good lady that sent me this book!" "But you never saw her, my dear," said the mother. "No," answered the child; "but I love her because she sent me this beautiful present." "My child," said the mother, "you told me the other day that you could not love God because you have never seen Him. And yet you love this kind lady whom you have never seen, because she has given you a present. Now you have all around you the presents which God has given you. Why can't you love Him for His presents?" A Close-Up or an Overall View?
We are not able to comprehend the big beautiful picture that God is creating in our lives.
Reinhold Messner was a skilled mountain climber who was recognized as the best in the world. He was one of two men who first climbed Mount Everest without using bottled oxygen. Messner then decided that doing it with a partner was not good enough, so he went back and did it alone. He was asked, as most mountain climbers are, "Why do you do it?" He replied, "Because at the top all the lines converge."
Even though we may not always have the "view from the top," it is a great encouragement to know that God does! He is sovereign! He has said, "I am the Lord. I do not change!" (Malachi 3:6). Because He sees the "overall picture," He is worthy of our trust!
God's love for us is unconditional and never-ending, like a father's love for his children.
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:16 NASB).
Country singer George Strait sings a song entitled, "Love without End, Amen." It tells the story of a young boy coming home from school after having a fight and expecting punishment from his dad. Fully expecting the wrath of his father, the son waited, expecting the worst. However, the father said, "Let me tell you a secret about a father's love ...Daddies don't just love their children every now and then ...it's a love without end. Amen."
The young lad grew up and passed this secret on to his children. One day he dreamed that he died and went to heaven. He was concerned, as he waited to go in, because he realized there must be some mistake for if they knew half the things he's done they would never let him in. It was then that he heard his father's words again, "Let me tell you a secret about a father's love ...Daddies don't just love their children every now and then ...it's a love without end. Amen."
Isn't it comforting to know that we have a Father like this? It is no secret, concerning our Father's love: God doesn't just love His children every now and then; indeed, it is a "love without end, Amen."
-Bill Thrasher
God loves us unconditionally, whether we are good or bad, because of His nature as love.
A preacher tells us how one of his children said to the youngest, "You must be good or Father won't love you." He called the child to him and said, gravely and tenderly, "That is not true, my boy." "But you won't love us if we are not good, will you?" asked the child. "Yes, I shall love you always; when you are good, I shall love you with a love that makes me glad; when you are not good, I shall love you with a love that hurts me." That's exactly what the love of God is toward us. He was not obliged to love us because we were either bad or good, but He did love us because of what He is-Love-and for that reason He came. His coming was neither forced nor deserved.
God reveals His love by drawing us close, not by instilling fear, as shown in Christ's incarnation.
Ancient Greek poetry tells of a warrior, the hero of Troy, dressed in all his military armor, stretching out his arms to embrace his little son before going into battle. His child was frightened as he looked at the helmet and full military dress, and instead of falling into his father's arms he screamed in terror. However, under all the battle array was hidden a heart of fatherly love. The warrior threw off his armor, gathered his little boy in his arms, and held him tightly against his chest where he could hear the beating of his father's heart, as if saying, "I love you, I love you."
That's how God revealed Himself at Bethlehem. There He does not instill fear but attracts with His love.
Prioritizing money over relationships leads to brokenness and selfishness.
A father was in the basement of his daughter's house trying to fix something for her when the blow torch exploded and he was badly burned. As if that was not enough, the daughter is suing her father for damages to get all the money that she can out of him. This is a perfect illustration of what happens when you put money, material things, first in your life.
Studying and speaking on love fills a person to share God's love powerfully with others.
I remember I took up the word "love," and turned to the Scriptures and studied it, and got so that I felt I loved everybody, I got full of it. When I went on the street, I felt as if I loved everybody I saw. It ran out of my fingers. Suppose you take up the subject of love and study it up. You will get so full of it that all you have got to do is to open your lips and a flood of the love of God flows upon the meeting. If you go into a court you will find a lawyer pleading a case. He gets everything bearing upon one point, heaped up so as to carry his argument with all the force he can, in order to convince the jury. Now it seems to me a man should do the same in talking to an audience; just think that he has a jury before him, and he wants to convict a sinner. If it is love, get all you can upon the subject and talk love, love.
Without love as the root, all other virtues wither and spiritual life dies.
"As when the root of a tree perisheth, the leaves keep green for a while, but within a while they wither and fall off; so love is the root and heart of all other duties, and when that decayeth, other things decay with it. What would the virtues be if they could remain without love? A sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. But, as a rule, they do not long remain. First one drops off and then another, like falling leaves; and by-and-by the man is as a bare branch, only fit to be cut down and cast into the fire. Some, who once professed great things, have now hardly enough rags of morality left decently to go to hell in, and all because they were without true love, and therefore were rotten at the core. Evil in the heart is a deadly wound, but it is usually unperceived till it has done its work. No axe has been lifted against the man's morals, no great strokes have gashed his visible character, and yet the end has been certain, the ruin has been complete: the spiritual life-sap ceased to flow, the branch of usefulness withered, and at last the tree fell over, to lie prone among the spoils of death. We have seen it—seen it so often, that our most solemn warnings are reserved for secret declensions. There is something nobler in falling by the woodman's strokes than in perishing by a little worm at the root. The meanness of decaying into corruption, while standing in the midst of a church, is awful. Lord, have mercy upon us, and keep us from this evil. Amen.
True love for God grows through hope and fear, not by ignoring them.
St. Lewis the king, having sent Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, on an embassy, the bishop met a woman on the way, sad, fantastic, and melancholic, with fire in one hand, and water in the other. He asked what those symbols meant. She answered, "My purpose is, with fire to burn paradise, and with my water to quench the flames of hell, that men may serve God without the incentives of hope and fear, and purely for the love of God." But this woman began at the wrong end. The love of God is not produced in us, after we have contracted evil habits, till God with his fan in his hand hath thoroughly purged the floor, till he hath cast out all the devils, and swept the house with the instruments of hope and fear, and with the achievements and efficacy of mercies and judgments.
— Bp. Taylor
God's love warms hearts more effectively than force or pressure.
LOVE, Table of The Wind, seeking to remove the traveller's cloak, blew its fiercest blast; but the traveller only drew it closer about him. "I will show you a better way," said the Sun; and he shone upon the traveller so bright and warm, that the cloak was gladly laid aside. Every natural heart wraps about itself a cloak of cold indifference to the claims of the religion of Jesus. All religious teachings are vain, which fail to penetrate or melt this icy covering.
A father's love and forgiveness inspire a prodigal son's return and repentance.
A father in good circumstances, in one of the Eastern States, had a reckless son, who disgraced himself, and brought shame upon his family by his misconduct. From home the prodigal went to California to become even more reckless. For years, the father heard nothing from him. A chance offering, he sent this message to him: "Your father still loves you." The bearer sought him long, in vain. At last, he visited a brothel, on his search; and there recognized the erring son. He called him out, and at the hour of midnight, delivered his message. The gambler's heart was touched. The thought of a father that loved him still, and wanted to forgive him, broke the spell of Satan. He abandoned the game, his companions, and his cups, to return to his father. The heavenly Father sends a like message to every prodigal.
Christ's love and gifts inspire gratitude and wonder even in the unworthy.
A certain man had a wayward son. His conduct brought-down his father to a premature grave. On the day of his funeral, the son was present; saw unmoved the pale face of his father in the coffin; stood unmoved on the brink of the grave. The family retraced their steps. Their father's will and testament was read; in that testament was the name of the undutiful son. As his name was read, his heart heaved with emotion, his eyes were bedewed with tears, and he was heard to say, "I did not think that my father would have so kindly thought of me in his will." In the family of Christ, some of us, in reading his testament, and thinking upon his great love and marvellous gifts, are filled with contrition and gratitude, with love and wonder.
— Rev. John Davies
Love is the everlasting essence and fulfillment of God's law and gospel.
Love is the abridgment of the law, the new precept of the gospel. Luther calls it the shortest and the longest divinity: short for the form of words;
long, yea, everlasting, for the use and practice;
for "charity shall never cease." T. Adams.
Love unites believers as the mortar holding together Christ's spiritual church building.
As, in the building of a house, brick and stone are held together by mortar; so the Church, Christ's spiritual building, is joined together by love.
Pure love for one person expands to embrace all humanity universally.
Love one human being purely and warmly, and you will love all.
The heart in this heaven, like the wandering sun, sees nothing, from the dewdrop to the ocean, but a mirror which it warms and fills.
Human love is often fickle and unstable, unlike divine love.
He loved Amye, till he saw Floriat; and, when he saw Cynthia, forgot them both. But fair Phillis was incomparably beyond them all. Clorris surpassed her; and yet, when he espied Amaryllis, she was his sole mistress. O divine Amaryllis! how lovely, how tall, how comely, she was, till he saw another! and then she was the sole subject of his thoughts. In fine, her he loves best he saw last.
— R. Burton
God's love delights in seeing His image reflected in renewed believers.
It has been said by some one, "Suppose the sun in the heavens, which enlightens and warms and fructifies every thing, were a rational being, which could see every thing which it effects: it would then behold its own image in every sea, in every river, in every lake, in every brook; nay, it would even see itself reflected in the loftiest mountains of ice; and would it not in the abundance of its joy, forgetting itself, embrace all the oceans, seas, and rivers, nay, the very glaciers in its arms, and delight over them?" Thus Jesus Christ, the Sun of righteousness, beholds his image and divine work in every renewed soul as in a polished mirror. Thus our eternal Father beholds in his children the beauty of his Son Jesus Christ, with a complacency which is more than we are able to express. He embraces them with the arms of his love, and he loves the image of himself in which he has renewed them. Dowling.
God's love shines universally, embracing all creation with fatherly care.
The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world's joy. The lonely pine on the mountain-top waves its sombre boughs, and cries, "Thou art my sun!" And the little meadow violet lifts its cup of blue, and whispers with its perfumed breath, "Thou art my sun!" And the grain in a thousand fields rustles in the wind, and makes answer, "Thou art my sun!" So God sits, effulgent, in heaven, not for a favored few, but for the universe of life; and there is no creature so poor or so low that he may not look up with childlike confidence, and say, "My Father, thou art mine!" Beecher.
The love of money leads progressively to sin and ultimate condemnation.
"The love of money is the root of all evil." It groweth up a little plant of coveting: presently the leaves get rank, the branches spread, and feed on petty thefts; then, in their early season, come the blossoms, — black designs; plots, involved and undeveloped yet, of foul conspiracies; extortions on the weak; rich robbings of the wealthy; the threatened slander; the rewarded lie; malice, perjury, sacrilege; then speedily cometh on the climax, the consummate flower, — dark-red murder; and the fruit, bearing in itself the seeds that never die, is righteous, wrathful, condemnation.
A mother's love comforts and points her children toward heavenly hope amid life's trials.
The music of that silver-toned voice we again hear from the spirit-laud, singing some soothing melody, or telling in simple language "that sweet story of old," till forgotten were all our childish sorrows. And now, in the strife and tumult of life, when the cold world frowns darkly upon us, her gentle words come back, bidding us "look above." Who can fathom the depth of a mother's love? No friendship so pure, so devoted. The wild storm of adversity and the bright sunshine of prosperity are all alike to her: however unworthy we may be of that affection, a mother never ceases to love her erring child. Often, when alone, as we gaze up to the starry heaven, can we in imagination catch a glimpse of the angels around the "great white throne;" and among the brightest and fairest of them all is our sweet mother, ever beckoning us onward and upward to her celestial home. R. Smith.
Religion is summed up in loving God and others, an endless ocean to explore.
When a man is told that the whole of religion is summed up in the love of God and the love of man, he is ready to cry out like Charoba, in Gebir, at the first sight of the sea, "Is this the mighty ocean? Is this all?" Yes, all! but how small a part of it do your eyes survey! Only trust yourself to it; launch out upon it; sail abroad over it; you will find it has no end; it will carry you round the world. Hare.
