“For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believed in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 NLT)
Rick Warren shared this story in a recent devotion: “A while back, a man came into my office and said, ‘I’m a Christian, but I don’t feel like I’m going anywhere in my spiritual growth. I’m kind of stuck in neutral.’ I said, ‘What do you think the problem is?’ He said, ‘I think my problem is I just don’t love God enough.’ I said, ‘That’s not your problem. Your problem isn’t that you don’t love God enough. Your problem is that you don’t understand how much he loves you.”’
Love is always a response to love. The Bible says, ‘We love because he first loved us’ (1 John 4:19 NIV). When you say, ‘I don’t love God,’ it’s because you don’t understand just how much he really loves you.
In fact, God loved you even before he created the earth. The Bible says it like this in the Message paraphrase: ‘Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love’ (Ephesians 1:4).”
Any meaningful discussion of love must begin with God, who is the Author of love. John reminds us in his first letter: “God is love!” The Lord doesn’t have the capacity NOT to love. Everything He does flows from His love for His creation. Then why all the evil, sin, and terrible things that happen in the world? Because love doesn’t demand its own way! (1 Corinthians 13:4)
In the beginning love flowed freely between God, the Creator and all His creation, including mankind, but when the freewill of man chose to violate God’s love and disobey Him, all Hell broke loose – literally! Man decided he/she liked making their own choices rather than listening to God and that’s the short answer for why we’re in the mess we’re in today.
The only reason to ever question God’s love for us is because we don’t know Him, and the only reason anyone would choose to not love Him in return is because they don’t know Him. Trust grows out of relationship so, too often, to not know Him is to not trust Him, thus, to not sense His great love. If we’ll only stop to realize what a tremendous sacrifice He made for our salvation, the Spirit will help us open our heart to the gift of His life and love available to us through His Son, the Lord Jesus.
Some misunderstand why Jesus died and believe in some way God was punishing Him for something. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life, qualifying Him to be the only suitable sacrifice for our sin. God didn’t make Jesus come to earth and die in our place, Jesus believed it was an honor to sacrifice Himself – to voluntarily pour Himself into human flesh, to give humanity (me and you) the opportunity to see in human flesh who God is and how much He loves us.
Dying on the Cross wasn’t to pay the penalty for Jesus’ sin, He had none, it was for us, me and you, who had no way to be free of the penalty of the sin that plagued us and was dragging us to a sure eternity in hell, separated from God and His love. So, you see, it’s not about how much we love God, it’s that we must realize how much He loves us – enough to allow His only Son to die in our place, for our sin.
If you’re not feeling very loved, please don’t blame God. He’s done all within His power to open the floodgates of heaven and invite you in, but you must respond. Please click this highlighted link and allow Ron Hutchcraft to walk you through a simple, straightforward way to open your heart and life to the lover of your soul.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 