WE LOVE BECAUSE GOD FIRST LOVED US (1 John 4:7-21)
God in His Word declares “I AM, that I AM.“
“God IS” (Exodus 3:14). The Bible declares that “God IS Love” — a simple yet significant statement revealing that love is what God IS as well as what God does.
No one can fully understand God, or God’s Love.
What is your own understanding of God’s Infinite Love? Is your conception of His infinite divine love merely based on your own limited concept of human love? Unfortunately, most people base God’s Love as being the same as our love for each other, as human beings.
Our concept of God’s Love is critical to our understanding of who and what God IS. For example: God’s Love provided your salvation as a believer. God’s Love motivates your growth to spiritual maturity. God’s Love secures your glorious, eternal future with Him. Love IS God! Love is an extension of God.
God has a plan for the human race, but in particular those who believe in Christ as Savior and Lord. God’s plan for the believer is personal, and based on His unfailing, unconditional love.
God always deals with the justified believer in personal love. He loves us (the believer) because He loves Christ and the believer is IN Union with Christ.
God deals with the unjustified unbeliever with impersonal love. To illustrate this point of doctrine, we will use Adam and the woman. In the Garden of Eden, before the Fall, the Lord came daily to walk with and teach Adam and Eve face to face (Genesis 3:8), so they enjoyed an intimate, loving, relationship by daily instruction by the Lord Himself.
The Bible does not tell us the duration of daily Bible classes in the Garden. God was in the world with mankind, in person and visible. Then, when Adam and the woman sinned, the relationship was severed. God could no longer be in-person with humanity — sin separates man from God. This is the reason God sent His Son: to pay our death penalty so that we could be restored, our choice. Christ paid for our sin(s) and God the Father is satisfied (propitiated), mankind is now free to choose to obey by believing in Christ. (John 3:15-18), or not.
Each person now experiences the same opportunity, the same test, as did Adam: the test of obedience. Please notice in John 3:36, John used the word “obey.“
“He who believes in the Son has eternal life (present and permanent possession); but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, because the wrath of God abides on him.” Now, read John 3:15-18 a second time. In these verses Christ Himself tells us to believe in Him or perish.
So, are you going to obey and believe, or disobey and not believe? Adam failed the obedience test, have you?
“Believe and obey is a directive of command with a choice or option attached. So, will you continue in disobedience (not accepting Christ) or will you make the decision and obey? If you do not accept God’s gift of salvation, you stand convicted and guilty without Christ, without hope, without eternal life. Is that what you want? Well, believe in Christ and you shall be saved (Acts 16:31).
When Adam and Eve disobeyed (Genesis 3:6), they fell from Grace (personal relationship) and their daily intimate fellowship with the Lord was broken. They became separated from God, alienated from the plan of God. Separation from God is caused by sin. Since the fall, man’s relationship has been severed and can only be restored by faith in Christ (John 14:6).
God demonstrated His unfailing Love for mankind, by the Cross, while we were still lost in sin (Romans 5:8). He demonstrates His Love for the believer by the filling of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is now our teacher — and that, ultimately, is the reason for the filling of the Spirit.
God’s love increases our capacity to love from our own soul, and to sustain extraordinary relationships with other people. The ultimate source of Love IS God.
God’s Unfailing Love
The unfailing love of God is a critical key to our motivation to love God and others, therefore Love is a reciprocal thing — a many-splendid thing.
During the course of human history, God’s Love/Plan is revealed by His provision for our salvation (the Cross); by His provisions for living the Christian Life; by His provision of “surpassing riches” as we pass from time to eternity (Ephesians 2:4-7).
By the Word of God and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, God’s Love/Plan elevates the believer’s love for God and man. God’s Love (demonstrated through Jesus Christ on the cross paying our sin debt), is the motivator of the believer’s soul love.
The Love of Christ surpasses academic knowledge (Ephesians 3:19). Think on this: Without objective knowledge from the Bible, man would remain subjective in his thinking about God. Subjective man equates divine love with human love. Our perception of human love cannot heighten our perception of divine love. The Word of God is man’s point of objectivity! The Bible is the only textbook — the single source of cognition about God and His Love.
1 Peter 1:8 explains our “rejoicing of joy” which in all it’s glory, is inexpressible.
“And though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8). Is that awesome or what? How many times have you read this verse and missed the message.
PERFECT LOVE FROM PERFECT INTEGRITY
God’s Love is perfect because of His perfect Integrity!
It is interesting thinking when we realize that God does not fall in love or begin to love as we humans. Why? Because God IS LOVE. God IS Eternal Love. God is Eternal Life. LOVE IS ETERNAL!
The earth is full of the unfailing love of the Lord (Psalms 33:5b).
HUMANIZING GOD
Too many seminary professors, pastors, and people, are reducing theology by humanizing God. Humanizing God is making God in your own image. The human philosophy of God says that God is love without justice. We are living in the fulfillment of 2 Timothy 4:3-4 (look it up). Today, people are long on emotionalism and short on Biblical Truths — DIVINE VIEWPOINT. This results in a formulation of man-made religion — “to each his own religion.”
People today are manipulating God’s love by weeping, buying God’s love with huge offerings, or by good behavior. People are inventing God in their own desired image … what a tragedy! What a terrible mistake, and it is a miss-take of God, with the lake of Fire at stake.
God does not become what man wants Him to become. Man cannot restrict God! Man cannot reduce God! For man to restrict God to human ideals or characteristics is blasphemous! When man humanizes God, in effect he eliminates (rejects) the One True Living God of the Bible. God is infinitely superior to human concepts of deity and love (Isaiah 55:8-9).
Think on this: God’s Love is worthy of admiration to the infinite degree of His Absolute Being. God is absolute. God is “I AM!” It is a terrible, even horrible thing, to reduce God.
“God’s Infinite Love over-arches the earth from the Cross and back to the Cross, forming an endless circle with no beginning, no ending. Love is eternal! Love is from eternity to eternity.”
Jesus Christ is the centrality of history. The Love-attitude of Christ during His lifetime and during crucifixion demonstrated a Love beyond our understanding, beyond our limited ability to understand. The Love attitude of the Father and the Son manifested itself on the cross when Christ said: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:24). Nailed to the Cross, Christ demonstrated the absolute Love of the Father. God’s Love for fallen mankind was eternally manifested in Jesus Christ on the Cross. This highest possible Love of God (Jesus Christ) is man’s only hope for a personal relationship with God. “For while we were still in our sins, Christ died to save us.” Romans 5:8. Therefore, if you will, “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).
The expression of God’s Infinite Unfailing Love is the Cross of Grace. Because of the Cross, God is free to Love and Save mankind.
THE OBJECTIVE OF THE BELIEVER’S UNIQUE SPIRITUAL LIFE
“And to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19). The Greek word pleroma, translated “the fullness” of God in Ephesians 3:19 is the result of consistent inhale of Bible Doctrine, comprehending and utilizing that knowledge by application to the everyday details of life. It should be the objective, therefore of every believer to reach maturity (pleroma) in Christ. Be full of the knowledge of Christ and then as Christ’s Ambassador spread the Good News that Jesus Saves.
Knowledge of the love of God must precede love for God. When you know God through Bible Doctrine, you will have respect for Him. When you respect God, you will accept His Words of grace, and you will respond by obedience to His mandates. “But whoever keeps His Word, in him the love of (for) God has truly been perfected” (1 John 2:5a).
The Bible student is blessed by association with God. The unbeliever is blessed by association with mature believers. Be a blessing. Make a difference. Be a light in the darkness of this world. The believer and the world must understand the unfailing love of God. As ambassadors for Christ during His absence from the earth, we are to imitate Christ on earth until His return.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise God’s unfailing Love. Live it!
Happy Studying in Fields of Grace.
.