In order to appreciate another person’s love for you, it is important to know who the person is, and what value they bring to your life. If they bring no value to your life, their love really will make no difference, one way or the other. Therefore, in order to appreciate God’s love for you, you’ll need to know who He is, why He loves you, and how that love can impact your life. So who is God?
God is the holy Creator of the universe, including both the visible and the unseen things. He has ultimate power and wisdom. He owns everything and everybody (see Psalm 24:1), and has the right to do with each person as He chooses. He created man in His own image, so humans have the character of God, and just like God, we are eternal beings, as well as emotional beings. Being emotional, we have the ability to love, hate, forgive, create, and admire beauty.
When God created man (Adam and Eve), He enjoyed a relationship with them; He visited and talked with them often (see Genesis 3:8), until that relationship was tainted and interrupted by sin, the result of Satan’s doing and man’s disobedience. Sin ruined the relationship, not only in the present, but also for the future--eternally, because God is holy and cannot co-exist with sin, in this world or the next. Out of love for us, and the desire to resume an ongoing relationship with us, God put into motion the plans He had from the beginning of time to restore the relationship. The only solution to the problem was for sin to be punished.
Did God punish sin? Yes! How did He do it? He became Man in the person of His Son Jesus, in order to take on the punishment for the sin of mankind; the only way back to God. What this means is, God the Creator, left His holy dwelling place in heaven with all the pump and worship of angels, to live among sinful men on earth. God the giver of life died, willingly. By His death, Jesus paid the penalty for sin, thereby restoring the relationship between God and man. This is the demonstration of God’s love for you and me.
Do you know of any kings, leaders, masters, or lords willing to trade places with their servants or subjects. How many of these dignitaries will want to serve a one day jail sentence for any criminal in their jurisdictions, let alone die for one? Without interviewing any of them, I can accurately answer this question. None of them! The point is they all enjoy the honor, respect, and power that come with their positions. They’ll not consider giving all that up for anybody—whether it is for a friend or foe, but Jesus did! The Scripture tells us, “God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him” (1 John 4:9 NLT).
If God set His glory and majesty aside, became human, suffered, and died, when He didn’t have to, we should equate it to love. He did all this out of love for us; it should mean something to us. He knows what our lives would be like without His death. In order for His love to mean anything to our lives, we need to respond to His love and the salvation He’s offering by His death. We are not automatically saved by His death; we have to ask to be saved, because of the onetime death He died in our place. We’ll be doing ourselves a disservice if we turn our backs on Him. The Bible says, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command” (John 15:13-14 NLT).
That’s as good as it’s going to get. There’s no other way to get into a personal relationship with God without accepting Jesus’ death as your own. No amount of arguments you pose about salvation through Jesus, will change anything; He is God and the buck stops with Him. His Word says, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31 NLT); “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3 NLT).
God loves you! Before you were born, He had plans in place to redeem you from the sin nature you inherited from your fore-parents, Adam and Eve. How are you going to respond to this demonstration of love? Please embrace that love. Call on Jesus today, repent of your sins, and ask for forgiveness. He will forgive you and start the work of transformation in your life that will begin to restore the loss of His image in you.
Being aware of God’s love does amazing things in one’s life. You can approach Him anytime, anywhere, in any situation with confidence. After all He is your Father, and has promised never to leave you or forsake you, and to give good gifts to those who ask Him (see Hebrews 13:5; Matthew 7:9-11). I encourage you to fall in love with Him today!
PLEASE SHARE THIS MESSAGE WITH YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS! THANK YOU.
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