CHAPTER 1
GOD'S NEVER ENDING
LOVE
God’s
love and mercy are never ending. What do the words never ending mean? They mean everlasting, endless,
timeless, perpetual, constant, ceaseless, and without end. Isn't it wonderful
to know that God's love for us is all these things, and that God will never
abandon us? His love is constant and unconditional. God's mercy is always
present to forgive our sins and lead us back to Him.
Throughout the Bible, God’s love for
humanity is made clear to us. Having created the world and everything that is
good, God gave man dominion over all living creatures, as well as the gift of
free will. God established a friendship with man, and because he loved him very
much, he even provided a companion for him.
It was because of Adam and Eve’s
disobedience, however, that sin entered the world and brought great loss to
humanity and to all creation. Thereafter, an obvious pattern, a course designed
by God to show His love and mercy, began to emerge in the Bible. The Old Testament
shows how difficult it was for man to keep God’s law. Even still, God does not
forsake His people. Instead, he ministers through His prophets and His priests
to reclaim them and bring them back home. Man is therefore instructed by God to
offer the sacrifice of animals in atonement for his sins. In Hebrews 9:13-15,
it says,
"For if the blood of
goats and bulls and the sprinkling of a heifer’s ashes can sanctify those who
are defiled so that their flesh is cleansed, how much more
will the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our
consciences from dead works to worship the living God.”
“For this reason he is a
mediator of a new covenant: since a death has taken place for deliverance from transgressions
under the first covenant, those who are called
may receive the promised
eternal inheritance."
In the New Testament, God sends His only
son, Jesus, to establish a new covenant with us, different from the old one.
Jesus is the unblemished sacrifice, capable of delivering us from our
transgressions and freeing us from the old law. We now have the promise of an
eternal inheritance through Christ Jesus, which includes the complete
forgiveness of sins.
Jesus teaches us a new commandment
to love one another.
Through Christ’s great love for the Father and for us, he is able to restore
our broken relationship that was once marred by sin. In this way, Jesus
emulates the great love of the Father for us.
Today, God's never ending love
reaches us daily in many ways. God gives us family, close friends, food,
shelter, clothing, and even our jobs. Jesus gives us the Church and our Holy
Father to shepherd us. He also gives us the priests as a gift from His Father,
and the sacraments to help us overcome our weaknesses and grow in grace. God grants us innumerable opportunities
to atone for sin; through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. He gives us His
Mother to care for us, to bestow her graces upon us and to teach us the
virtues, especially humility and obedience. We have His angels to protect us,
and the saints to intercede for us. The Holy Spirit strengthens us, renews our
spirits, and comforts us. God gives us blessings too numerous to count.
How
often do you thank God for these gifts; daily, weekly, monthly? All too often,
we fail to do this as much as we should. We must thank God on a daily basis for
everything He gives us. We should tell God that we love Him, and we should keep
His commandment to love one another. In this way, we imitate God's love for us. This is the greatest
thanks we can give to God, to imitate His example and to live out His word in
our daily lives.
I learned the importance of
offering my love and thankfulness in prayer to the Father in the beginning of
my walk with Christ. It was a very painful and difficult time for me, and it
was through prayer that I began to grow and mature in Christ.
I remember lying in bed one
night crying, because I felt God had abandoned me. He kept reassuring me,
however, that he was right beside me. I didn’t feel comforted by His words,
because I couldn’t physically feel Him. He kept saying to me, “My child, I am
right beside you.” And I kept replying, “But Lord, I can’t feel you. I can’t
feel you.”
The next day, the Lord asked me to write
for him. He gave me a beautiful message, regarding the ability to feel His
love. This is what He said to me:
“It is the spiritual things that
enable the physical things to be felt, my child.
It is the heart that allows
the soul to see. It is the ears that allow the mind to hear,
and it is my love that will allow
you to feel me, my child.”
“I want you to feel me, my child. Even though you cannot feel me in the
physical
sense, you can still embrace me in the spiritual sense. Know that each
love
you send me from your heart reaches mine, and I embrace it and send it back
to
you, my child.”
What a wonderful consolation
God gives us through His love. When we show our love for God, he returns our
love to us in full measure. Thus, whenever you feel down or depressed, simply
tell God that you love him, and His love will comfort you immediately. You will
feel His love pouring back into your heart, and the consolation will lift you
up. God longs to hear His people
tell him that they love him. What person or parent does not wish to hear this
from a family member or from their child?
We also show our love for God
through our love for one another. This is what Jesus said to me while in prayer
in March, 2002:
"My
children, answer yes to me this day. Tell me that you love me, and I
will shower you with many blessings of the
Father. I wish for you to also now
succeed in venturing out as children of my
Heavenly Father. He wishes for you
to now succeed in bringing one another,
home with me. Do you know how this
must be done, my children? You must
believe in my goodness, shower one another
with hope of my promises of mercy, and
learn to be obedient to all my commands
of mercy for one another."
As
Christians, we should strive higher for perfection in our daily walk with
Christ, through loving and forgiving one another. We should reflect on the
Gospels more often and incorporate them into our daily lives and circumstances.
What do the Gospels call us to do? We should ask ourselves these questions
frequently.
For instance, how often do you
try to keep peace with one another? How often do you pray for your enemies? How
much love and charity do you show your neighbor? How do you treat others when
they hurt you? And let us not forget the sins of omission; visiting the sick,
clothing the needy, and feeding the hungry. All of these things are part of the
Gospel teachings.
Do you know enough of the Gospel
teachings to imitate them quickly and often? Do you study and reflect on God's
word until it becomes a part of your very being? If you don’t know the answers,
you should start by reading the Bible daily. God’s words are truth and light,
and they give us the path to victory in our lives.
The saints lived out the Gospel calling.
The Gospels were so much a part of their lives, that they had no problem
following Christ and reacting to situations as Christ would. Can we say the same
thing about our own lives? Each of us is called to become a saint, and we truly
can if we love God and our neighbor more than ourselves. This is why dying
to self is so important.
It teaches us to abandon our free wills to God, to follow in Christ’s
footsteps, and to live out the baptismal calling we have received. It teaches
us to rise above our own selfish ambitions and to imitate Christ in every
aspect of our lives.
If we respond to God’s graces,
His love for us will enable us to put others' needs before our own. It will
help us to walk more closely with him, if we are willing to serve one another
with humility of heart. Christ came to serve, not be served. Our attitude
should be the same. No matter what our limitations are, God can give us the
ability to serve Him. We have only to desire it, as Christ did.