The Great Love of God: Encountering God's Heart for a Hostile World. Heath Lambert. 2023. [April] 208 pages. [Source: Library]
First sentence: God loves you. God's love is greater than the measureless galaxies in the vast expanse of creation. It stretches eternally beyond the distant sun and plunges forever past the depths of the deepest sea....
Christian nonfiction. The topic/theme/subject matter is the LOVE OF GOD. The author stresses how transformative the love of God is, and how Christians sometimes don't know what quite to make of the love of God. It can be overwhelming and beyond comprehension.
Twelve chapters about the love of God. Each chapter does spend a good, solid amount of time in Scripture. This is always so important, in my opinion, when discussing any Christian doctrine but especially-especially important when addressing the attributes and nature of God. It is so important that Christians do not ADD or SUBTRACT to what the Bible reveals about the author--God. Books that are saturated in the Word are less likely--to a certain degree--to twist Scriptures and trick readers.
It is important that the concepts of LOVE and GOD'S LOVE (and mercy, lovingkindness, etc.) be discussed in light of what Scripture says and not contemporary society's concepts and ideas.
The book is also packed with the author's personal experiences and spiritual journey.
The book at times made me squirm. Some of the passages are hard to take/accept. I don't know if this is because it is literally so difficult to comprehend that God actually actually loves me (loves us). Or if the theology at times gets slightly off. I think definitely a few phrases here and there might be misinterpreted when taken out of context.
Quotes:
The love of every other person for you is based on something about you. This is not the way God loves. everyone else loves you because of something true about you. God loves you because of something true about him. It is God's nature to love. Nothing you have ever done or ever could do will make God love you. He loves you because of who he is, not who you are. God's love flows from the fact that he is God. Love is who God is and what God does. God's love will never waver.
The great love of God is his commitment, based on who he is, to delight in you, to give you wonderful things, and to protect you from harm. This love is the most precious reality in your life. You may not know it, but God's love defines you. God's love for you is the one thing in this world that gives your life meaning. God does not love you because you matter. You matter because God loves you.
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