Christian Living

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God's Love and Ours
7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
We were enemies, rebellious, sin-sick, blind, dead, deaf, separated, alienated from Him, yet He loved us and was willing to die for us. Why?

It was all about love.

This love is deep, high and wide; beyond comprehension, unequalled, great, mammoth, long, unconditional, forgiving, forbearing, unselfish, sacrificial, incredible, amazing and full of grace. Yes, it was (GRACE) God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense bestowed upon us.
That Grace and love was personified in Jesus Who became our substitute as the Lamb of God Who came to take away our sin in order to reconcile us back to God.
It pleased the Father to bruise Him for our sake
10 Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand. .( Isa53:10)

Why? It was all because of love.
Jesus Who knew no sin was made to be sin; the sin of the whole world was heaped on Him for us.
21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Why? It was all because of love.

God’s love is mind-blowing, out of this world, agape love and that love gives and gives and gives, hence God so loved the world that He gave His only son of His love to rescue us from perishing, from the burning, from damnation and condemnation. He demonstrated His love towards us while we were yet sinners.
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.John15:13
4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.Ephe.4:4
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.1John3:1


he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Psalm 103:10-12
We were in so much debt, drowning and damaged by its weight, suffocating, in chains, in prison, languishing, crying, hopeless, ruined, stinking, but He stepped in paid the debt, removed the weight, opened the prison doors and turned on the light and raised us from the dead.

Why? It was because of love.

We are told that that same love was shed abroad in our hearts. He removed the heart of stone and replaced it with the heart of flesh.
He wants us to respond to His love first of all, appreciate His love, surrender to Him, give Him first place as He works his love into our whole being and we become like Him and allow Him to love others through us.

6Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.1John2:6


We cannot do this by ourselves because human love is limited, conditional and selfish; but His Spirit in us lifts us from the natural to the super-natural. He has been given to us and a deposit, a guarantee of God’s transforming power and an assurance of His promises.
Who are we to be called friends?
Friendship has a deep connotation in those days. We can see it at work between David and Jonathan as they celebrated that special covenant. It meant they exchange each other’s strengths. Where David was weak Jonathan rose to the occasion and vice versa. David’s resources became Jonathan’s. David’s fight became Jonathan’s fight.
That friendship was the motive behind David’s provision for Mephibosheth (Jonathan’s son) who was lame and crippled. After the death of Jonathan and David’s coronation, David sought for some one to bless because of Jonathan, his friend, because of the power of a covenant.
6Now when Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, was come unto David, he fell on his face, and did reverence. And David said, Mephibosheth. And he answered, Behold thy servant!
7And David said unto him, Fear not: for I will surely shew thee kindness for Jonathan thy father's sake, and will restore thee all the land of Saul thy father; and thou shalt eat bread at my table continually.
8And he bowed himself, and said, What is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am? (2Sam9:6-8)

You and I are no longer enemies but friends of God although we have nothing good to offer in this covenant but loyalty, love and obedience.

I pray that we will understand the love of God and respond appropriately to Him and see Him manifest Himself in our lives and allow Him to love others through us. Amen.
It is all about love!

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