Tuesday, January 03, 2006
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A Love Like No Other.
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A Love Like No OtherThe one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.(1 John 4:8-10 NIV)
"How would you define or describe love? Some might describe love as an intense feeling or passion. ("I love my wife.") It could also be used to describe something that gives you pleasure. ("I loved that movie.") Love has so many meanings in the English language. It can be very confusing and hard to define.
The Bible tells us that "God is love." (1 John 4:8) It also tells us in the passage above that love is not that we loved God, but it's that He loved us so much that He sent his Son as a sacrifice for our sins.
Think about that for a minute. Okay, more than a minute.
Can our finite minds comprehend just how much God loves us?
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."(John 3:16 NIV) "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."(John 17:3 NASB)
I've been in love before… or at least I thought it was love. It wasn't constant. It was conditional. It didn't last. It didn't look too much like the kind of love the Bible describes. I can hardly imagine the kind of love that would make such a sacrifice. Or the kind of love that is eternal. It's more than I can comprehend.
This kind of love is constant. It's unconditional. I know it's hard to understand – because in our "flesh" – the love we usually see or experience is conditional. We're so used to doing something in order to receive love and being rejected if we don't. It's no wonder this kind of love the Bible describes is so hard for us to believe, much less understand.
I want to know more about this love. Don't you?
just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.
In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.(Ephesians 1:4-6 NASB) For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;your works are wonderful, I know that full well.(Psalm 139:13-14 NIV)
The Bible tells us He loved us before we were even born. He created us and He loves His creation – regardless of the mistakes we make.
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.(Romans 5:8 NASB)
He loved us even as sinners. He didn't die for us because we were good, perfect or even saved for that matter. We were still sinners and yet He chose to die for us. Nothing we did caused Him to do that. It wasn't about being good or doing good deeds. This kind of love defies explanation. He simply did it because He loved us.
He loves you now – just as much as He ever did.
Nothing you have ever done or will ever do – can change His love for you.
God loves you simply because He has chosen to do so.
He loves you when you don't feel lovely. He loves you when you feel unlovable.
He loves you when no one else loves you. Others may abandon you, divorce you, and ignore you, but God will love you. Always. No matter what.
It is a love like no other.
are you looking for a love that will never change?
are you looking for a heart that will never die?
are you looking for someone who will always be there with you?
are you looking for someone who will carry you when you can't go on anymore in life?
are you looking for a hope?
Then look for Him, the only one God sent, that can grant you the love you always wanted, the only one who guarantees His love will never fail, because you are His child.
Look to Jesus.
C.K blogged at 11:05 PM