God's love is not a blanket affection for all humanity as the world often assumes. His love for the world is impersonal, existing only in relation to His overall purpose, and lacks the warm, personal concern He reserves for His children. While He serves His creation by showing kindness to the unthankful, enduring the wicked with long-suffering, and providing for both the just and unjust, this is far from the fullness of His love. He does not grant the ungodly access to Him, nor does He give them His Spirit or forgiveness unless they reciprocate His love through belief and obedience. In contrast, God's special love is directed toward His saints, those who are His own and return His love by keeping His commandments. He demands reciprocity in this relationship, a mutual exchange of action where His love flows to those who respond to Him. His love for His children is intimate and full, forming a bond that grows stronger as they reflect His image. To the godly, He is a Savior, preserving them, while the ungodly face His stern justice if they reject Him. God's love, therefore, is differentiated in intensity. He does not love everyone equally, nor does He expect His children to show the same depth of affection to the world as they do to their brethren. His concern for the ungodly is rational, dominated by His purpose, while He hates sin and the actions of those who persist in it. Yet, due to His perfect control, He endures with patience, working toward His plan without immediate destruction. True love for God is shown by submitting to Him, not to the world, and by reciprocating His love through a life aligned with His will.

God does not love everybody to the same degree. God clearly chooses whom He will love. God does not love the devil because there is absolutely nothing in him to love. The devil hates God and God knows full well that love given to satan will never change him. His nature is fully set in him to be perpetually evil. There are differences in His degree of love for mankind too. As it is written Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated. God is not exaggerating when He says that He hated Esau. Even within the womb when neither had done anything evil or good God exercised His sovereignty and He chose Jacob. People believe God is obligated to love everybody equally. No He is not. That belief arises from a misunderstanding of John 3:16. The word world in John 3:16 is used in seven clearly distinct contexts. The context of John 3:16 restricts the application to the world of the converted. The world God loves is that world of converted people. God truly loves His own children over and above others. God loves the converted that Jesus died for. In Ephesians 2 God exercised His sovereignty and called people anyway. God by exercising His will clearly shows His decisions are not always carried out in the same manner.

God does not love everyone equally. Indications appear that He loves some not at all, as when He hates the workers of iniquity and when He declares that Jacob He has loved but Esau He has hated. This choice occurs before the children are born and before either has done any good or evil, so that the purpose of God according to election might stand, resting not on works but on Him who calls. The same sovereign exercise of love appears when God selects Israel from among all peoples on the earth, not because the nation is numerous or possesses any merit that renders it lovable, but simply because He loves and because He keeps the oath sworn to the fathers. The identical principle operates toward those called under the New Covenant. The Father chooses them in Christ before the foundation of the world and predestinates them to adoption according to the good pleasure of His will, without regard to any excellence of intelligence, character, or ethnic origin that might commend them. Grace, defined as favor shown to the undeserving, stands as the direct opposite of justice, which bestows no favor and remains no respecter of persons. Because God is sovereign over law as its Giver and over resurrection as the One who raises whom He pleases, He distributes grace to whomever He chooses. This exercise of differing love humbles those who receive it, for they recognize themselves as worms in comparison with the Creator yet remain objects of His deliberate affection. It also excludes all boasting, since nothing in the recipients earns or deserves the love bestowed. The same sovereignty that determines whom God loves likewise governs every other aspect of His relationship with creation, requiring those who have received His choice to trust His perspective, power, wisdom, and love rather than demand that He act according to human notions of fairness.