GOD IS LOVE
10 June 2020
Reading: 1 John 4: 7 – 21
Key verse: “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him” 1 John 4:8-9
Many people misunderstand the attribute of God’s nature which is love. “God is love” does not mean that everything is sweet, beautiful, and happy, and that God’s love could not possibly allow punishment for sin. God’s holiness demands that all sin be punished, but God’s love provided a plan of redemption and salvation for us all. God’s love provided Jesus Christ and through Him we can have forgiveness and cleansing. It was the love of God that sent Jesus Christ to the cross.
“since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”, Romans 3:23. From Genesis to Revelation, the Living word tells us of man’s greatest tragedy through to God’s greatest triumph, this dramatic story of man’s lowest depths and God’s highest heights can be summed up in twenty-seven beautiful words: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Who can describe or measure the love of God? The Bible is a revelation of the fact that God is love. John
17:22-24 “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,
23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” What a gift, God is love and that love sacrificed His Son, so that you and I can become sons and daughters of God. Ephesians 3:17-19 “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge —that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
We do not just receive forgiveness of sin, but all of God’s love is given to us. And as part of that love we have the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit working in our lives that guides us, challenges us, builds us up and is the channel through which God shows his love towards us and the channel that we can speak to God Romans 5:5 “–because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
So when we preach justice, it is justice tempered with love. When we preach righteousness, it is righteousness founded on love. When we preach atonement, it is atonement planned by love, provided by love, given by love, finished by love, demanded because of love. When we preach the resurrection of Christ, we are preaching the miracle of love. When we preach the return of Christ, we are preaching the fulfilment of love.
We can truly say our Father and our God, Your love is marvellous beyond compare. It is the prompter of grace, the basis of our hope, the source of our salvation and redemption. Your love sent Jesus to the cross for me, and for that I will forever be overwhelmed with gratitude. Thank You, eternal Father, for your boundless love, which I receive daily through Christ Jesus, my Lord. Amen.