Focus: Love Like No Other

Text: Jer.31:3

"The LORD hath appeared of OLD unto me, saying, Yea, I have LOVED thee with an everlasting LOVE: therefore with LOVINGKINDNESS have I drawn thee."

God speaks to His people through prophet Jeremiah, and reassures them of His undying and endless love.

He says, "He appeared to me of OLD..."

God's love is ancient. I call it the antiquity of love. He didn't start today loving us and He will not stop tomorrow loving us. His love is as old as it is new. Yes, it's love so old, yet so ever new! According to Paul in Eph.1:4, God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, and love is the reason for that choice.

The words 'loved' and 'love' are in Hebrew ahab and ahabah. The first is masculine and the second is feminine. God's love for you is fatherly and motherly love. It is tough and tender - love so strong, yet so soft. No missing ingredients. I pray you see and experience all the facets of divine love!

The word 'lovingkindness' is 'hesed' in Hebrew, and that's the mercy of God, also known as the covenant love of God. YHVH is our covenant Lord. He keeps promises and sticks to His oaths. So it's a capable and reliable love.

And you know what? God IS love. He is the love He shows us. He is not one thing, and then shows us a different thing. We see who and what He is by what He does - He loves.

In the birth of Christ we see love putting on the human flesh. We could literally see and touch it. So real a love! Christmas is a season in which we celebrate God's love for us. It's love like no other. Hallelujah! Amen!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter