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God is Love 5


And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. (I John 4:16) 

“God has no beginning, end, or succession of moments in his own being, and he sees all time equally vividly, yet God sees events and time and acts in time.” (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 168) 

          “Until death do us part….as long as we both shall live….” Unconditional love. We seem to think it is in the nature of love for it to last forever. Since we tend to see ourselves as having a beginning and an end, we may find it difficult to think of love as not being the same. We see ourselves as falling in love, and we think that when we do so, it’s the beginning of love – but it’s not.  Sometimes, it is merely the excitement of the person’s senses, and not love at all. Even when it is actually love, it is more the process of activating love and attaching that love to a specific person. It’s more as if falling in love is like turning on the oven. The power was always there, but it wasn’t in use, and the temperate in the oven doesn’t go from 75 to 350 in ten seconds flat, it heats up in the course of time. 
          I know a couple who were both widowed and eventually married each other. One of the things I find amazing is the openness of their love for their deceased spouses. They speak of their love for the one who is gone and of their love for one another. I don’t see any jealousy. Maybe that’s normal. It should be normal, but to me, it’s different, and refreshing, and sweet. And, it speaks to me of what love is supposed to be like, both within time and outside of time. This is one of those concepts that we can't really understand, but that doesn't mean it's not true.

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