Devotion for January 25, 2015: “…for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God.” - John 16:27 I love you because: you do the dishes, you buy me presents, you are so funny, you know just what to say, there is just something about you. While we may have spoken these or other reasons to our spouse or our significant other, most often we do not think what it means or implies. Think about it. If your husband did not do the dishes would you cease to love him? If your wife stopped buying you things would you cease to love her? If your child was no longer humorous would your love stop? You see, while we may not intend it in that way, when we put a condition on our love declarations we are implying that if the other person stopped doing something we would no longer love them. And it sort of sounds that way in the text before us today. It almost sounds as if God would not love us if we do not love Him…and well, that is a good way to understand it; and yet again it is a horrible way to understand it. Confusing yet? God does love us. For while we were still sinners God showed us His love in this, that He sent His One and Only Son into the world to be our Savior. God loved us before we even knew who He was. God loved us as He knit us together in our mother’s womb. God loved us from all eternity and set in motion His plan for our life and our salvation. God loved us and before we were even a gleam in our mother’s eye, God promised us a Savior from our sins. God loved us regardless of how we felt towards Him. Yet, God loves us when we believe in Jesus Christ, His Only Son. For when we know Christ as our Lord and Savior, we know that our sins are forgiven through His life and death. When we know Jesus Christ as our Redeemer, we know that Christ has risen from the dead to assure us that heaven is ours through faith in Him. When we know Jesus as the Only One who can make us right with God, then we know that God has loved us and sent His Son to be ours. Yet, when we willfully neglect God…when we willfully sin against God’s commands…when we walk away from our Savior and spit in the face of God…God still loves you. God’s love is so far beyond our own that we will never understand it. For even when we sin, God continues to call out to us through His Word. Even when we walk away from God He continues to seek us out and send His servants, pastors and Christians, to find us in the darkest of places. Even when we choose to abandon God and His word, God still seeks us out…because God wants everyone in heaven. God loves us more than we could ever understand; yet, God’s love for us will not guarantee our spot in heaven. Though God loves us and sent His Son to die for us, if we do not believe, it is of no effect for us. Though God continues to call out to us, if we ignore and shut Him out, we will wind up in hell. Though God is love, we are sinners and our sin pulls us ever farther from God. Yet, God still calls out to us during this life. During our “time of grace,” also known as our life on earth, God calls out to us with all that He has...and God loves it when we turn from our sins and believe in Him. And we know that this is true, for God has told us. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, God Himself, lets us know that God loves us because we love Him; and we love Him because He loved us first and gave us His Son for our redemption. God loves us because He does. There is no qualifier on that statement. And now through faith we know this love of God, we know our Savior Jesus Christ, and we ‘feel’ this love every day of our life, and one day we will ‘feel’ this love in heaven. Prayer: Lord, thank You for loving me before I loved You. And thank You for loving me because I love You. Amen. Soli Deo Gloria!
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 21:06:38 +0000
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