02/13/2019
We are the children of God, and what a wonderful realization that is. Being God’s children is being loved by the very heart, and the origination of all love... and this understanding is amazing beyond description. We might stand in awe of God’s power, but His love is His true strength, and our greatest joy.
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”1 John 3:1 ESV
Love is mentioned 310 times in the Bible, and that is more than mere happenstance, it represents the importance placed on this emotion by God, and reveals it as His nature to us. He does more than just instruct us in this knowledge, but has placed within us its seed, and allowed for it to be germinated and grow from the moment we come to know Him. So, if we know God we also know He loves us, and that we love Him, and others.
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”1 John 4:7-8 ESV
Do we abide in God, and He in us? If so then we are abiding in absolute love. Knowing this reveals to us just how incredible it is to abide in God... it is His complete and unending love that joins us...
“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”1 John 4:16 ESV
Jesus spoke of abiding in God, and He in Him, but when reading this the world tries to limit this to one man, the Son of God, and they haven’t yet understood that they too are His children. Oh what a wonderful realization that is, and what a promise that is.
“If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.”John 15:10 ESV
In love there is no fear, only joy. However, when we become separated from God by our own doing the first sign to appear is fear. When we lose sight of God’s love for us, and lose our grasp on the comfort and the joy it brings, then we will experience fear just as we saw in Adam when he first came to know sin...
“But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?" And he said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself."”Genesis 3:9-10 ESV
When I was an adolescent in middle school I had a girlfriend at school, and we did much together. I would carry her books for her, we would write notes and pass them to one another in the hallway, go to assemblies together, and attend school plays with one another, in essence we were best friends, but somewhere in the course of our friendship she fell in love with me. I think girls mature faster than boys so she was way ahead of me in this. Suddenly she began complaining when I spent time camping with my buddies, or doing the other things that young guys do together, and I was forced to make a choice between the life of a boy or entering a relationship that was more than I was prepared for... love. When I made my choice to be one of the guys I was shocked because she no longer wanted to treat me as her friend, once she had experienced love the equation had somehow changed, and unless I made the transition to this new more mature relationship then there could be no close friendship. Something similar is true between ourselves and those in the world as it relates to God... unless those in the world understand and know God’s love we find ourselves distanced from them. This doesn’t mean that we can’t, or don’t, love them, but they just can’t love us back in the same way. Adam’s understanding of sin crippled his ability to love God in this way, but God never stopped loving him... and in time God gave His Son Jesus to restore the love Adam had lost to its mutual fullness.
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.”Jeremiah 31:3 ESV
Do you see the kind of love that God has given us? Have you become His child by abiding in it? If so then you realize that Jesus, from atop Calvary, has closed the gap between us, and redeemed what was once lost. Our love of God that had turned to fear in the Garden of Eden is restored to us, and joy has been reclaimed.
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for your unending and all encompassing love for me, and for the patience you exhibited in waiting for me to reach out to your Son Jesus. I thank you for the redemption that He brings, and the fear He takes away. I thank you for allowing me to abide in His love even as He abides in Yours. Help me Gracious Father to reach out to those in the world who don’t know you. Help me to continue loving them even though they might hate me because they do not know you. Give me your patience as I speak your Word, and the gospel of Jesus to them, and show the world your love and joy through me as enticement to them. Give me tolerance for the world’s hate, and long suffering, even as You await the renewal of their hearts. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who is love, and by so being is unable to stop loving. Praised be your name Father, for you will never deny yourself, but forever love us, and reach out to us. Hear our faithful voices as we call out to you from the world, and open our hearts to you Lord that we might be found in you. Let your love and grace be sufficient for us, and your glory shine over all who answer Yeah to your voice.
“"If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”John 15:18-19 ESV
Rich Forbes