Greetings!
Long time no see, however...
Love is in the air. I am not talking about the giddy, bubbly love that men and women experience around Spring and Summer time, I mean it is literally in the air. Take a breath. That is love! Can you control whether you will take your next breath? I will never know when I will take my last breath. My life is being held by someone greater than me, and that is a sobering thought. Is there anything I can do to add a day to my life? Luke 12:25 says, "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" So whether we want to admit it or not, our life hangs in a balance that we have no control over. So what sustains us? God's love and mercy.
Ephesians 2:4-5 NLT- But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that
even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he
raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have
been saved!)
I want to rest on how truly amazing God's love is. I, along with many other people, have been burned by love. You may be experiencing this right now, someone you loved has betrayed you and taken your feeling of affection towards them and crushed them. Some of you may feel unlovable, or that love is never to be trusted. Some of you may have experienced love, but it was based on conditions, it may have been based on how much fun you had and when the fun stopped so did the love. Whatever your experiences are with love, I am going to ask you to do me a favor. Don't look at the God's love with the same lens of all the experiences that you had with love and allow God to reveal how much He truly loves you, and how much He truly values you!
God love embodies so many things, but I want to focus on a few amazing qualities. God's love is timeless - Ephesians 1:4-5 - "Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God
decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to
himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave
him great pleasure." Allow that to sink in. Before He formed the earth and the stars, God saw you and loved you! It was not because you did anything to earn that love, it was completely based on God's choice to love you. He wanted to love you and it brought Him great pleasure to shower His love on you!
God loves us just as we are. - Romans 5:8 - "But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." Christ accepts you as you are. (Romans 15:7) Even when were enemies of God,(sinners) He sent Jesus to die for us because He loved us. You don't need to reach a spiritual level, or read the Bible enough, or sin less to earn God's love. It is unconditional.
The bond of love between you and God is inseparable. - Romans 8:38-39 - "And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No
power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all
creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is
revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord."
That pretty much speaks for itself.
God went to great lengths to love you and pursue you. - Romans 8:31-32 - "What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?"
You are that valuable to God that He would allow His son to die for you. Do not allow anyone on this earth to determine your value or make you feel worthy. The God of the Universe saw you before He created everything, loved you, and said you were so valuable that He would send Jesus to die for you.
God loves us because of choice not because of need. - 1 Chronicles 29:14 - "But who am I, and who
are my people, that we could give anything to you? Everything we have
has come from you, and we give you only what you first gave us!" God doesn't need us to love Him. He is the originator of love. (1 John 4:19) This is so important, because our love is reactive. We love because someone loved us; our parents, our spouses, our friends, whomever it is has showed us love and we respond by showing it back to them, or we show them love and they give it back to us. However, our love knows limits and in most cases, if rejected enough we will stop loving. God doesn't need our love to continue loving us, but He graciously and greatly pours His love out not because we deserve it or so that we will reciprocate it back to Him as if He needed it. His love is completely selfless.
So what is our response to this amazing love? Do you think it would be wicked to have this love revealed to us and reject it? We do it every day though, we look for other things to validate us, to find satisfaction, to find love, and we fail to realize that the floodgates of pure, unmerited, and genuine love are waiting to be opened, if we just say yes, and accept the love that God is so readily desiring to pour out on us.
Your quest for true love can stop here. You are at a crossroads. You can respond to God's love by accepting it as a free gift and fall at His feet and worship Him. Or you can continue this foolish quest to find love, worth, or life in the shift sands of this world. I pray with all of my heart that you would taste and see that the Lord is good and that He loves more than you can possible imagine.
Love in Christ,
Daniel
No comments:
Post a Comment