The presence of a loving God!

(Thomas Brooks, "A Word in Season to Suffering Saints")

"You were precious in My sight, and I have loved you." Isaiah 43:4

God loves His people with a first love! 1 John 4:19, "We love Him because He first loved us."

By nature we were without God, and afar off from God; we were strangers to God, and enemies to God, yes, haters of God! Therefore if God had not loved us first—we would have been everlastingly undone!

God loves His people with a free love! Hosea 14:4, "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely."

I know they are backslidden—but I will heal their backslidings. I know there is nothing at all in them, which is excellent or eminent, which is honorable or acceptable, which is laudable or lovely—yet "I will love them freely"—of My own, free, rich, absolute and sovereign grace!

God loves His people with an everlasting love! Jeremiah 31:3, "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, with loving-kindness have I drawn you."

That is, "I love you with the love of perpetuity, or with the love of eternity. My love and My affections to you shall continue forever!"

God loves His people with an unchangeable love! Malachi 3:6, "I am the Lord, I do not change; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed."

Men change, and counsels change, and occurrences change, and friends change, and relations change, and kingdoms change; but God never changes! "He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man, that He should change His mind," 1 Samuel 15:29.

God is immutable in His nature, in His essence, in His counsels, in His attributes, in His decrees, in His promises, etc. He is Omnina immutabilis, "Altogether immutable!"

God loves His people . . .
  with a special love,
  with a peculiar love,
  with a distinguishing love,
  with a superlative love!

God loves His people with the greatest love, with a matchless love! John 3:16, "God so loved."
This signifies . . .
  the greatness of God's love,
  the vehemence of His love, and
  the admirableness of His love.

What an unspeakable comfort must this be to God's people—to have the presence of a loving God, to have the presence of such a loving God with them in all their troubles and deep distresses! If the presence of a loving friend, a loving relation in our troubles and distresses, is such a mercy—oh, what then is the presence of a loving God!