{"id":2002,"date":"2012-05-06T12:21:05","date_gmt":"2012-05-06T12:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=2002"},"modified":"2012-05-06T12:21:05","modified_gmt":"2012-05-06T12:21:05","slug":"everlasting-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=2002","title":{"rendered":"EVERLASTING LOVE"},"content":{"rendered":"

EVERLASTING LOVE<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHow precious also are Your thoughts unto me, O God!\u201d<\/p>\n

I have loved you, My people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to Myself.<\/em> Jeremiah 31:3<\/p>\n

Here we have an everlasting thought of God, \u201cin the beginning, before ever the earth was.\u201d Believer, travel back in imagination to the ages of the past. Before the trance of eternity was broken by any visible manifestation of power\u2014before one temple was erected in space, before one angel waved his wing, or one note was heard of seraph\u2019s song\u2014when God inhabited alone these sublime solitudes\u2014then there was a thought of you, and that thought was\u2014Love!<\/em><\/p>\n

Think of the sovereignty of that love. He says not, \u2018You have loved Me with your poor earthly love, therefore have I drawn you.\u2019 No, no! It is from nothing in you\u2014no foreseen goodness on your part. Grace is the reason of all He has done\u2014\u201dGod who is rich in mercy for His great love with which He loved us.\u201d \u201cI will have mercy,\u201d is His own declaration\u2014on whom I will have mercy.\u201d \u201cJacob,\u201d<\/em> (that cunning, scheming, crafty youth,) \u201cI have loved.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Manasseh,<\/em> (that miserable man who has defiled his crown, dishonored his throne, and deluged Jerusalem with blood,) \u201cI have loved.\u201d<\/em> That dying thief<\/em>\u2014fresh from a life of infamy, breathing out his blasphemies on a felon\u2019s cross\u2014\u201cI have loved.\u201d <\/em>And why<\/em>, let each of us ask, am I not a Cain or a Judas? <\/em>Why am I not a wrecked and stranded vessel, like thousands before me? Here is the reason; \u201cYes, I have loved you.\u201d Before you had one thought of Me, yes, when your thoughts were those of hatred, rebellion, enmity\u2014My thoughts towards you were thoughts of love!<\/p>\n

And that Sovereign love, as it is from everlasting, so is it to everlasting\u2014endless in duration\u2014enduring as eternity. The love of the creature is but of yesterday\u2014it may be gone tomorrow\u2014dried like a summer-brook when most needed. But the love of God is fed from the glacier summits\u2014the everlasting hills. We may estimate its intensity, when the Savior could utter regarding it such a prayer as this, \u201cThat the love with which You have loved Me, may be in them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh, amid the often misgivings of my own doubting heart, with its frames and feelings vacillating as the shifting sand, let me delight to ponder this precious thought\u2014the long line of unbroken love\u2014every link love\u2014connecting the eternity that is past with the eternity to come\u2014God thinking of me before the birth of time\u2014even then mapping out all my future happiness and heavenly bliss\u2014and standing now, with the hoarded love of that eternity in His heart, seeking therewith to \u201cdraw\u201d me!<\/p>\n

It is \u201cthe exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us through Christ Jesus\u201d\u2014the moral gravitation-power of the cross, by which His true people have ever been drawn. \u201cI, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Myself.\u201d Draw me, Lord, and I will run after You. Show me Your loving-kindness thus enshrined and manifested in Your dear Son. Constrain me to love You in Him, because You have first loved, and so loved, me.\u201d<\/p>\n

How priceless is Your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of Your wings.<\/em> Psalm 36:7<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EVERLASTING LOVE \u201cHow precious also are Your thoughts unto me, O God!\u201d I have loved you, My people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to Myself. Jeremiah 31:3 Here we have an everlasting thought of God, \u201cin the beginning, before ever the earth was.\u201d Believer, travel back in imagination to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-eternal-covenant","category-gods-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2002"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2003,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002\/revisions\/2003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}