Some of us believe that God is almighty and can do everything; and that he is all-wise and may do everything; but that he is all-love and will do everything—there we draw back. As I see it, this ignorance is the greatest of all hindrances of God’s lovers.
–Julian of Norwich
Instead of our self-conscious efforts to be good, we should allow ourselves the luxury of letting ourselves be loved, not after we clean up our act and get all our ducks in a row, not after we have eliminated every trace of sin, selfishness, dishonesty, and degraded love from our resume, not after we have developed a disciplined prayer life and spent ten years in Calcutta with Mother Teresa’s missionaries, but right now, right here . . .
–Brennan Manning
Do I really believe that I am loved first, independent of what I do or what I accomplish? This is an important question because as long as I think that what I most need I have to earn, deserve and collect by hard work, I will never get what I most need and desire, which is a love that cannot be earned, but that is freely given. Thus, my return is my willingness to renounce such thoughts and to choose to live more and more from my true identity as a cherished child of God.
–Henry Nouwen
God’s divinity does not consist in his ability to push things around, to make and break, to impose his will from the security of some heavenly remoteness, and to sit in grandeur while all the world does his bidding. Far from staying above the world, he sends his own glory into it. Far from imposing, he invites and persuades. Far from demanding service from men in order to enhance himself, he gives his life in service to men for their enhancement. But God acts toward the world in this way because within himself he is a life of total self-giving.
–Arthur McGill
We often confuse unconditional love with unconditional approval. God loves us without conditions but does not approve of every human behavior. God doesn’t approve of betrayal, violence, hatred, suspicion, and all other expressions of evil, because they all contradict the love God wants to instill in the human heart. Evil is the absence of God’s love. Evil does not belong to God.
God’s unconditional love means that God continues to love us even when we say or think evil things. God continues to wait for us as a loving parent waits for the return of a lost child. It is important for us to hold on to the truth that God never gives up loving us even when God is saddened by what we do. That truth will help us to return to God’s ever-present love.
–Henri Nouwen
He that is furnished with love,
stands at a distance from all sin.
–Polycarp (69?-155?)
The burden of life is from ourselves,
its lightness from the grace of Christ
and the love of God.
–William B. Ullanthorne (1806-1889)
Faith doesn’t twist God’s arm.
Faith is the assurance that
His arms are open.
–Glen Scrivener
To realize that you are safe and happy standing at God’s side, with His love encompassing you because you are forgiven; too happy to take offense any more; too much in love with life to want to be made miserable with an unforgiving heart, and knowing that now every conflict is a chance to learn more of the exceeding beauty of Love: that is worth living for, and surely worth dying to this misery-making self for. And let us be grateful beyond words for this: that God will not let us alone until we have learnt it and stand by His side.
–Florence Allshorn
We must love God
before we can be holy at all;
this being the root of all holiness.
Now, we cannot love God,
until we know He loves us.
–John Wesley (1703 – 1791)
We know of no other way by which to keep
the love of the world out of our heart
than to keep in our hearts the love of God…
–Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847)
We can either love God
because we hope for something from Him,
or we can hope in Him
knowing that He loves us.
–Thomas Merton
Let us be so assured of the inexhaustible tenacity of His love as to dare to trust Him, though He slay us. And let us look forward to that august moment when He will give us a reason to all life’s discipline, with a smile that shall thrill our souls with ecstasy, and constrain sorrow and sighing to flee away forever.
–F.B. Meyer
We sinned for no reason
but an incomprehensible lack of love.
And He saved us for no reason
but an incomprehensible
excess of love.
–Peter Kreeft
God’s love is a sun that never sets,
and never sinks;
is always, always at its
full noonday glory!
–A. J. Gossip
There is an ocean
of God’s love available–
there is plenty for everyone.
May God grant you never to doubt
that victorious love–
whatever the circumstances.
–Corrie Ten Boom (1892 – 1983)
The relentless love of Christ is evident each step of the way but it is best seen as he goes to the cross. The disciples boast, sleep, flee and finally deny, but he loved them to the end. He was betrayed but he loved the betrayer. He was abandoned but he loved those who abandoned him. When the ear of one of his captors was cut off, he restored it to wholeness. He was mocked and tormented and he loved his mockers and his tormentors. He was scourged and he loved his scourgers. He was denied and he loved his denier. He was crucified and he loved his executors. A thief appealed to him and was given the gift of paradise. And before anyone thought of asking for forgiveness he said, “Father, forgive them.”
-adapted from John S. Spong
So long as we imagine
it is we who have to look for God,
we must often lose heart.
But it is the other way about –
He is looking for us.
–Simon Tugwell
. . . It would be a mistake to give the impression that the Christian doctrine of God is a matter of clever intellectual word games or mind games. For Christians it’s always a love game: God’s love for the world calling out an answering love from us, enabling us to discover that God not only happens to love us (as though this was simply one aspect of his character) but the he is love itself.
–N. T. Wright
Is this miracle enough for anybody?
Or has the thunder of “God so loved the world so much” been so muffled by the roar of religious rhetoric that we are deaf to the word that God could have tender feelings for us?
–Brennan Manning
To know God
is to experience his love in Christ
and to return that love
in obedience.
–C. H. Dodd (1884 – 1973)
All desires but one can fail.
The only desire that is infallibly fulfilled
is the desire to be loved by God.
–Thomas Merton (1915 – 1968)
We were made,
not primarily that we may love God
(though we were made for that too),
but that God may love us.
-C. S. Lewis
Love is the only true power,
because it is the only thing
that does not want power,
just as love is the only true wealth
because it is the only thing
that can afford
to give itself away.
–Mike Mason
Love is more than the way
we practice for the world to come:
it is the world to come.
It is all that we shall be allowed to take
into the Kingdom of God.
–Mike Mason
It is only the revelation
that God is love that clarifies
the happy irrationality
of God’s conduct and
His relentless pursuit.
For love tends to be irrational.
It pursues in spite of infidelity.
-Brennan Manning
GOD’S LOVE FOR YOU . . .
Is an unfathomable love (Eph. 3:19)
It doesn’t get any bigger than that.
Is an eternal love (Jer. 31:3)
It doesn’t get more long-lasting than that.
Is an undeserved love (Rom. 5:8)
It doesn’t get any freer than that.
Is an individual love (Gal. 2:20)
It doesn’t get more personal than that.
Is a self-sacrificing love (1 Jn. 4:10)
It doesn’t get more amazing than that.
Is an indestructible love (Song of Sol. 8:7)
It doesn’t get any stronger than that.
It is a demonstrated love (1 Jn. 4:9)
It doesn’t get more undeniable than that.
Is an unstoppable love (Rom. 8:35-39)
It doesn’t get more secure than that.
THIS IS GOD’S LOVE . . .
And it doesn’t get any better than that.
Before the universe came to be, before the heavens were called forth with stars and moons, before the earth was carved in infinite beauty and human life was fashioned with style and grace and glory, before there was anything, there was the great dance of life shared by the Father, Son and Spirit. In staggering and lavish love, this God determined to open the circle and share the Trinitarian life with others. As an act of mind-boggling and astounding philanthropy, the Father, Son and Spirit chose to create human beings and share the great dance with them.
–C. Baxter Kruger
This love which He has for us bears His infinite character. He does not love us as we do, with a limited and narrow love. When He loves, the dimensions of His love are infinite. He descends from heaven to earth to seek the creature of clay, which He loves. He becomes man and clay with him. He gives His flesh to eat. It is by such wonders of love that the infinite surpasses all the affection of which men are capable. He loves as a God, and this love is entirely incomprehensible. It is the height of folly to wish to measure infinite love by limited knowledge. Far from losing any of His greatness by this excess of love, He engraves it with the character of His greatness, marking it with the exuberance and ecstasy of an infinite love.
–François Fenelon
Be persuaded, timid soul,
that He has loved you too much
to cease loving you.
–François Fenelon (1651-1715)
