His Love

Featured Image: Child at rest in His Loving Arms

“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.”

Timothy Keller

God’s agape love liberates, humbles, and strengthens us for our journeys of faith!

Pastor Keller speaks of a deep truth and our greatest need: to be loved and accepted by our Creator. This love is found in many passages in both Testaments and is a major theme/truth God reveals to us in His Word. Jesus speaks of this love for His us and His creation in John chapter 3: 16. John reminds us of this great truth in 1 John 3 and later in chapter 4.

Jesus’ Deep Love for His Children

How deep is His love for us, How vast beyond all measure, Why should I gain from His reward? I cannot give an answer; But this I Know will all my heart; His Wounds have paid my ransom. Lyrics: How Deep the Father’s Love for Us

Passages (Berean Standard Bible)

His Love for us as His Children 1 John 3:1-3, 16

1Behold what manner of love the Father has given to 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. 2Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. 3And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as Christ is pure.

Why does God love us? It’s His nature! He is love and He shows us what agape love is!

16By this we know what love is: Jesus laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

We don’t have to earn this love: it’s freely given in the form of His grace! This love is individual! He loves you as a person created in His image because He is Love. He loves you as you are knowing all that you are and your struggles and brokenness.

An eternal and personal Love

God’s love is personal. He knows each of us individually and loves us personally. His is a mighty love that has no beginning and no end. It is this experiencing of God’s love that distinguishes Christianity from all other religions. Why does God love us? It is because of who He is: “God is love.”

Source: https://www.gotquestions.org/God-love.html

This self-giving, sacrificial love. The Greek term is agape love. Simple explanation:

God loves because that is His nature and the expression of His being.

He loves the unlovable and the unlovely, not because we deserve to be loved or because of any excellence we possess, but because it is His nature to love and He must be true to His nature.

Source: https://www.gotquestions.org/agape-love.html

Active Love: We love because . . .

The key to agape love is that it is love in action. This love in action confirms our identity as being in Him. Because He loves us, we are adopted as His children and empowered to actively love others.

His Love embraces and transforms us! He sends His Holy Spirit to guide and empower us to live for Someone greater than ourselves.

He first loved us!

Verses 17-24–John explains:

17If anyone with earthly possessions sees his brother in need, but withholds his compassion from him, how can the love of God abide in him?

Sharing bread and being present to a person in need of a kind listener.

18Little children, let us love not in word and speech, but in action and truth. 19And by this we will know that we belong to the truth, and will assure our hearts in His presence: 20Even if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and He knows all things.

21Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God, 22and we will receive from Him whatever we ask, because we keep His commandments and do what is pleasing in His sight. 23And this is His commandment: that we should believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and we should love one another just as He commanded us. 24Whoever keeps His commandments remains in God, and God in him. And by this we know that He remains in us: by the Spirit He has given us.

Holy Spirit enables us to obey Him and works in our lives to love others. Consequently, we have assurance that we are in Him!

Do others see Jesus in us? Do we notice the sorrows and care for those we encounter?

Summary

His love frees us from having to pretend to be worthy or righteous through deeds or religion (pretense). His love defeats self-righteousness and frees us to love others as He has loved us. This is the wonderful truth of following Christ: freedom to be loved in and through our numerous failures and weaknesses. We are freed to love Him and those He places in our path.

If we are to love as God loves, that love—that agape—can only come from its Source. This is the love that “has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” when we became His children (Romans 5:5; cf. Galatians 5:22). “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:16).

Because of God’s love toward us, we are able to love one another.

Source: https://www.gotquestions.org/agape-love.html