This is the first of three messages dealing with love. Love from god to us, love from us to God and love for other Christians, the family of God. This message deals with the first of those three areas, God's love for us..
God Proves his Love For Us:
romans 5:6-11:
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled,
shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
I'm a member of a group of Christians who meet each week on Skype for a Church meeting. We pray, someone shares a scripture, someone might sing a song and then someone will share a message from the word of god. My turn had come around and I didn't know what i should talk about so i asked god and he gave me this message: "tell my people that I love them"
I answered "but I have already taught about your love for us"
and I was reminded of something my mum used to say, "actions speak louder than words."
We know that God loves us because he said so and we put our faith in that. Yet we live in a society that won't believe anything unless it has been proved. They demand eye witnesses, evidence, statistics, and won't believe what they can't see and hear.
So, how did God prove his love for us? There are so many ways! Each moment we draw breath, each day, each word in the bible, each challenge each blessing; God proves his love in too many ways to count
but there is one thing he did that proves his love for us more than anything else he could have done and that was the cross.
Think of God's pure spotless son hanging on that cross, blood dripping down, fighting for every breath, taking all our sins on himself with all our shame and guilt and taking the punishment for those sins, the wrath of God and separation from fellowship with god. Jesus had always experienced complete fellowship with the father but on the cross, where He needed the Father most, he was separated from him by our sins and God's punishment of them. He could have come down from that cross any moment but he didn't, he stayed there and gave up his life. He took our sin and shame and our punishment and made a way for us to have a relationship with god. You can almost imagine Jesus saying to us, "I love you this much!" Take a moment to reflect on what Jesus did for us on the cross and you will realise the lengths god has gone to for us. god has proved his love for us in the greatest possible way.
There are many reasons why Jesus died, I recently read an excellent book that listed 50 reasons why He suffered and died. [the passion of Jesus Christ by John Piper], but the greatest reason was because of God's great love for us.
Paul talks about that in our passage in Romans:
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
There wasn't anything in us that would prompt a person to die for us, especially god's holy son; but God chose to save us even though we were sinners who didn't know or care about God. Yet it was always God's plan to save us by allowing Jesus to take our place of punishment and death. The bible says in Ephesians 1:
in Christ, he chose us before the world was made so that we would be his holy people-people without blame before him. Because of his love, God had already decided to make us his own children through Jesus Christ. That was what he wanted and what pleased him, and it brings praise to God because of his wonderful grace. God gave that grace to us freely, in Christ, the One he loves.
[Ephesians 1:4-6 NCV]
the bible also says:
But it was the Lord who decided to crush him and make him suffer. The Lord made his life a penalty offering, but he will still see his descendants and live a long life. He will complete the things the Lord wants him to do.
[Isaiah 53:10 NCV]
so we know that it was God's will and plan for his precious, only begotten son to die and take our place and offer himself up as a sacrifice for the remission of our sins. That's how much God our father loves us,and how much Jesus loves us too. It's a staggering thought,
far beyond our human minds to comprehend!
If any of you are parents, try to see it from God's perspective. Would you want your child to suffer an agonising death to save other people who didn't know or care what happened? Yet God did that for us, even though it broke his heart to do it. And Jesus chose to do this for us, even though it was the hardest thing anyone could ever do! He could have called on the angels to destroy this world but he didn't because he loves us and wanted to reconcile us to god. This is how much our lord loves us! He talks about it in John 15:
"Greater love has no one than this,
that someone lays down his life for his friends"
(John 15:13).
God proved his love for us when he gave us his son and when Jesus, God's son, died for us. We have incontrovertible proof that we are loved by our father and creator. the cross is the evidence and the Apostles are the eye witnesses.
So, no matter what we feel when hard times come and God seems far away, no matter what the enemy tries to make us believe, we can know, without a shadow of a doubt, that God loves us deeply and profoundly - because he proved it.
The bible says:
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the
Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
[Galatians 2:20]
Take some time today to reflect on that.
Yes, Jesus died for all, he died for the Church; but he also died for each one of us. He died for me and for each one of you! i just can't get my head around that wonderful and amazing and beautiful truth, Jesus "loved me and gave himself
for me".
So, unless we choose to reject God and walk away from him, there is nothing in heaven or earth or hell
that can separate us from God's love as he says in his word in Romans 8:
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Why not take a moment today to reflect on God's great love for you. I pray that he will reassure you that he does love you. we all need to know this so that the enemy can't deceive us into believing that god doesn't love us.
Questions:
these questions do not need to be ansered except maybe between you and God, I put them here for something to think about.
1. are you convinced that God loves you? why or why not?
2. If you struggle believeing that God loves you have you prayed about it?
3. Has knowing that God loves you changed your life in any way?
I hope this message has been a blessing to you. May God bless you!
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