How great is the love the Father has lavished on us… (1Jn 3:1)
All you need is love…
On the commercial music scene love is very much in focus. One wonders just how many thousands of love songs have been written? However, we must be well aware that
There are two radically different kinds of love:
The “lurve” that Hollywood, pop songs and the pulp magazines talk about – I’d like to call this “Need love”. It’s all about me having my needs met and when this stops, I’m out of there!
Then there’s the love the Bible speaks about – Agapé or “Gift love”. This kind of love is not about me, it’s a gift I give to the one loved.
Many don’t understand the love of God, and fewer still experience it in a profound way, so let’s spend some time meditating on the love of God today!
It’s a Fatherly Love
Let’s first ask the question, “what does a good father do?”
1. Provides – men are wired to do this!
2. Protects – a true father will lay down his life for his family.
3. Instructs and guides – many modern fathers abdicate this role to schools.
4. Disciplines – loving discipline is essential for healthy development.
A true father should be the cornerstone of the household – reliable and faithful. Many scriptures underline that Father God is all of the above and more. In fact, He is the Father of all fathers. Unfortunately, many of us have come from broken or dysfunctional families and our image of our earthly father can distort our image of Father God. Let’s renew our minds today and think about Father’s love and let Him re-parent us.
Love is Father’s Primary Motive
So central is love in the attributes of God that John says simply: God is love! In other words, you can’t separate God from love and love from God. God is found wherever there is love. We can rely on God’s love because it never fails. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. (1Jn 4:16)
Love is God’s primary motive, it’s what moves Him and propels Him into action. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son… “(Joh 3:16) The ‘love passage’ in 1 Corinthians 13 teaches us that our primary motive should also be love, not duty. If I “…have not love, I am nothing! (1Co 13:2) For Christ's love compels us... (2Co 5:14)
Ask yourself, what is motivating or compelling you to do what you do? Is it mere habit, a sense of duty or responsibility or perhaps guilt? Let’s ditch all these false motivations and go for gold – let’s be motivated by the love of God! Let’s get re-connected to the source! God Himself ...love comes from God. (1Jn 4:7). The secret to operating in ‘gift love’ is to remain connected to the source of love and have God pour out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. (See Rom 5:5).
Father’s Love Takes the Initiative
Rom 5:8 teaches us that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Father didn’t wait for us to get our act together and straighten out our lives – He took the first step. He wins us with kindness, He woos us with love.
I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness. (Jer 31:3)
...God's kindness leads you toward repentance. (Rom 2:4)
Father’s Love is Unconditional
Father’s love does not depend on our performance. God knows us fully and yet He accepts us completely – warts and all. O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. (Psa 139:1-2) I don’t find this disconcerting; in fact, I find it truly liberating! I don’t have to pretend anymore, in fact I can’t, because God is not fooled.
We need to quit pretending and stop performing. We need to take off our masks and accept His love by faith. Relying on our religious works to earn God’s love takes us right back into the Law. Do you realize that, “Nothing you do today can make God love you more and nothing you do today can make God love you less?” He loves you completely already!
I ask: “When I as a born again child of God sin, does God stop loving me?” No! Not at all!
When I sin, I lose the blessings of Father’s house. However, I do not lose my relationship with Father. I’m still His child, though rebellious, sinful and out of fellowship with Him. On his return, the ‘Prodigal Son’ expected to live as a labourer in the servant’s quarters, but his father with open arms welcomed him back as a son of the household. God’s blessings may depend upon our obedience, but His love is truly unconditional.
Father’s Love is Practical and Sacrificial
It’s not theory it’s a reality! It has been fleshed out! Father got his hands dirty to help – He rent the heavens and came down. Jesus poured out his lifeblood on a cruel Roman cross.This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins… (1Jn 4:10)
Romantic, sensual love (eros) can be very needy and selfish. It may even give rise to ‘crimes of passion’. It’s not a patch on agapé – the love of God. Agapé love is not a feeling it’s an act of the will. Jesus didn’t feel like going to the cross to die, but He chose to. Three times he prayed, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me… but then He added the phrase, …yet not my will, but yours be done." (Luk 22:42)
The cross is your access point to the love of God – it is the way home – it removes the barrier that separates you from God. Come to the Cross – come home to Father.
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things... by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Col 1:19-20)
My Prayer for You:
My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit--not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength-- that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all Christians the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. (Eph 3:14-19 MSG)
I am a three times cancer survivor and the author of the book, “Going Against Goliath: How to fight cancer and win” which is on a killer special at the moment. If you have read this blog you are already on my website. Please navigate further and find out how to get your copy.
Amen🙌🏻