God's Love - Part 3

This is part three about why we worship God.  We mentioned that we worship God for who He is and what He has done.  One of the best things He is is LOVE and one of the best things He has done is LOVE US.  We answered several questions about HIS love in the last two segments:

How do we know God loves us? (John 3:16; 1John 3:16; 1John 4:9-10; 1John 4:19).

How much does God love us? (Rom 8:31-32;  John 17:23; Ephesians 3:16-21)

What can separate us from God's love? (Rom 8:35, 37-39)

When did God start loving us? (Eph 2:4-6)

This time let’s look at a couple more:

What about when we sin, does God still love us?

Eph 2:4 God sent His Son while we were still sinners.  Sin cannot separate us from His love.  He loves us the same always, even when we sin.  It makes Him sad when we sin, but He still loves us the same.  We try not to sin because He loves us and we love Him too.  He is glad when we make the choice not to sin.  He loves as a function of His nature – that is – it is not ever a question He asks “Am I going to love them today?”  It is a foregone conclusion because of who He is.  He cannot be otherwise or He would cease to be God.  There is no shadow of turning in Him.  Discipline and punishment He doles out as needed but love is always a constant (Ps 32:7, Jer 31:3, Zeph 3:17; Heb 12:5-11)

Remember God’s desire to love is 250 times stronger than His desire to punish –

Exodus 20:5-6  5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments.

No matter what you do He ALWAYS loves you.  Sure, He can be disappointed with what you do (Do not greave the Holy Spirit Eph 4:30), but His love is constant.  You are always loved.  There is a place of security, safety, rest, peace and well being in your Father's love.

What does God do with our confessed sin?

Jer 31:34  "No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD.  "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

Mic 7:19  You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea

Act 3:19  Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,

Psa 51:1 and (  Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions…Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.

Isa 43:25  I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.

Isa 44:22  I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.

Ps 103:12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.

There are others as well: Col 1:12 the forgiveness of sins. 1John 1:9  will forgive us our sins.

Are you rooted?  Do you know and believe in how much He loves you?  Do you believe He loves you as much as He loves Jesus? Do you believe nothing can separate you from His love?  Do you see His love as your possession?  Do you believe your sins have been trampled underfoot, thrown into the see of forgetfulness, remembered no more, blotted out and fully forgiven?  Do you believe He has always loved you?  That there has never been a time when He did not love you? 

God wants us to be secure in His love and know it as our foundation the thing that roots us to Him.  He wants us to know He has always loved us and nothing can take that away from us.  He wants us to experience His love in a tangible way.  He desires to quiet us with His love, to rejoice over us with His love.  His love is our exclusive possession.  He has made a way to always thing positively of us by wiping out our sin and remembering it no more.  God love you infinitely and he is pleased with you as His child!  Walk tall brothers and sisters.  Rest in Him, YOU are the beloved of God!

References

All Scriptures not specified are quoted from Life in the Spirit Study Bible (NIV). Stamps, Donald C., and John Wesley Adams. Life in the Spirit Study Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003. Print.

God's Love - Part 2

Last time we talked about why we worship God.  We mentioned that we worship God for who He is and what He has done.  One of the best things He is is LOVE and one of the best things He has done is LOVE US.  We answered several questions about HIS love

How do we know God loves us?

He sent His Son to die for us, in our place so that we could know and love Him.  He knew before He created the world it would cost His Son, yet He created it anyway (John 3:16; 1John 3:16; 1John 4:9-10; 1John 4:19).

How much does God love us?

As much as He loves Jesus!  He sacrificed Jesus for us (Rom 8:31-32;  John 17:23)! Ephesians 3:16-21 taught us God wants His love to be our stable, fixed and firm cause of grounding in who we are and why we are important. God wants His love to be our foundation upon which we lay the basis for who we are as a person, to erect a stable view of our intrinsic value based on His love for us. Paul is describing a three-dimensional love, an experiential love, a love far beyond knowledge,  infinite love.  Love that God wants us to build our foundation upon, keep on growing in, and resting upon.

Now for answers to some more questions:

What can separate us from God's love?

Rom 8:35, 37-39 ^“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

WOW!  There is quite a list here of things that cannot separate us from His love; trouble, distress, persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger, sword, death, life, angels, rulers, things present, things to come, any powers, anything above, anything below, anything else in all creation.  Paul purposely belabors the point to make it crystal clear: NOTHING CAN SEPARATE US FROM HIS LOVE!

When did God start loving us?

Before He created time and the universe, He loved us.  Before we knew Him, while we were still sinners, He loved us. There has never been a time when we were not loved(!); not in the worst moments of our existence, not in our greatest achievement when we were not sure we needed Him or His love, not in our deepest sin, our worst pain, our exceeding loneliness,... our every moment of existence and even before we existed we were loved!!  Remember God knew the cost before He created the world and yet He created it.

Eph 2:4-6   But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,  made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.  And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,

Jer 1:5  "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart..."

It is time to be rooted in His love.  It is time to build upon the foundation of His love.  It is time to believe we cannot be separated from His love. It is time to remember the timelessness of His love.  It is time to believe we are loved as He says we are loved; with an infinite, abounding, gracious, forgiving love.  Come into the arms of the Father and let Him love on you!



References

All Scriptures not specified are quoted from Life in the Spirit Study Bible (NIV). Stamps, Donald C., and John Wesley Adams. Life in the Spirit Study Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003. Print.