God, The Greatest Lover of All - Part 1

Welcome to this weekend's In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley. God's love toward us is unconditional.

A reminder is coming your way as the Liberated to Love series continues. For two primary reasons, we have difficulty receiving it. Number one, we don't think we deserve it and we don't.

And secondly, we don't understand it. And for those two primary reasons, we have a very difficult time receiving, accepting God's love for us. And so the reason I think we have difficulty is because we can't quite make His love harmonize with our love. And so we want to be able to feel that God loves us the way we love others. And when we put it in that light, somehow if God loves us like we love others, then I'm not sure God will always love me the way the Bible says He does. So what I want to talk about in this message, I want to talk about God's love for us. And the title of this message is God, the Greatest Lover of All. And I want you to turn, if you will, to 1 John chapter 4. This book is full of love. 1 John, that's Revelation from the back, Jude 3, 2 John.

And I know that most of you know where it is, but every once in a while somebody doesn't know where these small epistles are. 1 John chapter 4. So beginning in verse 16, he says, now look at this, There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment.

And the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If someone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he's a liar. For the one who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

And this commandment we have from him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also. Now, all of us are probably at different levels in our understanding of God's love, or even being able to feel it. And if I should ask you this morning, how many of you genuinely believe God loves you? More than likely, most of you could raise your hand and say, I do. But if I should say to you, how many of you, as a way of life in your daily life, you feel God loving you? More than likely, most of you probably would say, well, I know he does, but to ask me if I feel like it, not exactly. And more than likely, the reason you don't feel like it is because, number one, you don't think you deserve it. And so if you don't think you deserve it, then why should you...