Today on Summit Life with JD Greer, I take myself back to these stories and this situation where God declares his love to me in his name, and he says, I am, this is how I am, it's how I always will be, I do not change, and I know that the love that he demonstrated for me in these stories and the love that culminated on the cross, that is the declaration of his love for me, that's where he proclaimed his name.

Welcome to Summit Life with Pastor, author, and theologian JD Greer, I'm your host, Molly Vitavitch.

Okay, so have you noticed that the verses about God's love tend to get repeated and memorized?

Passages like John 316, they stir up warm, sentimental feelings, and they make us feel good about how fortunate we are.

But today, Pastor JD explains that God's love for us has nothing to do with our worthiness or loveliness, and has everything to do with God's compassion toward us.

We're in a teaching series called The Name, and if you've missed any of the previous messages, you can hear them online at JD Greer.com.

Today's message from Exodus 34 is titled Abounding in Love.

You may or may not ever have been a groupie at some point in your life. In fact, I would, as some of you look kind of guilty, and so like you started like, and then you started shaking your head.

I know that some of you are, but most of us, even if you haven't been a groupie, know what it's like to love somebody who doesn't love you back, or be into somebody that's just not that into you.

I think, for me, one of the most mind-blowing things in Scripture, one of the things that's hardest for me to get my mind around, is that we see God, the Almighty God, the self-sufficient creator, which means that he doesn't need anything.

Theologians call that the assayity of God. He doesn't need anything or require anything to be happy, he's happy in himself.

We see that God continually putting himself in that position. We find him constantly reaching out to love people who don't love him back when he really has no reason to.

And I'm going to tell you this weekend that understanding that one thing about God will probably do more to change your life than any other realization you could have in your life.

I began this series with this statement by A.W. Tozer, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

What comes into your mind when I say God is the most important and most defining thing about you, because we tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.

But when and if you come to see the steadfast love of God, it's going to give you a joy and a fullness and a freedom that will redefine you and all of your relationships that will transform you into being the kind of loving person that you've always wanted to know and that you've always wanted to be.

Y'all, our deepest longings are for love, aren't they? I mean, we know that just listen to the songs that we sing and listen to the watch the movies that we put out. We want we want love to love. That's what our souls want.

Exodus 34, six and seven Moses asked God if he can see God for who he really is. And so God puts him into a cave and a mountain covers him with his hand.

And God says this, Exodus 33, 19, we'll back up a little bit there. I will make all my goodness. God says past before you and I will proclaim before you my name, the Lord. That's how I'm going to reveal my glory to you.

It's my goodness is going to be expressed in a name, my holiness, except for 34 verse five. And the Lord descended then and a cloud and he proclaimed the Lord and he brewed use the proper name of God, Yahweh literally means I am.

I am, I am, I am a God merciful and gracious slow to anger bounding and steadfast love and faithfulness keeping steadfast love for thousands for giving an equity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.

The element that dominates this description of the name of God is love. It is presented here in this name like a mini sided diamond. So let's walk through because you get several descriptions that all kind of turn the diamond of God's love and show you different dimensions of it, merciful and gracious.

...