Friday, January 7, 2011

Real love

God's unfailing love is so far beyond my comprehension... it is so great... so high, so wide, so deep! In my limited human thinking, I keep wanting to put terms on it (like, "You are loved if ___"). And the enemy works hard to convince me that I am not worthy of God's love. I know that is a lie... yet I still find myself tempted to believe it. Ugh! That is so painful!

So this morning I soaked in the beautiful truths the Bible boldly proclaims about God's love...
God showed how much He loves us by sending His one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
1 John 4:9-10

See that? Real love is not that we love Him, but that He loves us!

And...
We love others because He loved us first.
1 John 4:19

This is a really phenomenal concept! God doesn't love us because we love Him, or because we do stuff for Him—He loved us first...before we had a chance to do anything... good or bad!

There's so much about God's unfailing love in the Psalms... so I started highlighting those verses in pink. They're much easier to find that way! Over and over, His unfailing love is demonstrated toward His people. Psalm 107 is a perfect example... even after His people rebelled against Him (once again), He STILL loved them and rescued them from "darkness and deepest gloom!" Wow. His love is amazing! See what I mean about the height and width and depth of it?!

1 comment:

Karen Hossink said...

Oh, yes!
God's love is a decision, an act of His will. Like you, I have a hard time trying to understand it. But I believe it - and I am so thankful!