God loves you

So we have been dealing with a group of difficult subjects over the past few weeks in these blogs.

So I decided it was a good time for a blog that will comfort and uplift us.  Me included.

So this is simply some gentle writing about the love of God. No pictures this week –just soothing words from the Bible.

Which is OK to do from time to time.

Didn’t our Lord tell us

Mat 11:28-30
28 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.  29 "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.  30 "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

So perhaps in a small way these words from the Lord in this blog will help you find some rest for your souls.

Our Christian life began with the love of God, did it not?  It did:

Joh 3:16
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 

Our Lord Jesus Christ made sure we understand how important love is:

Joh 13:34-35
34 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  35 " By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

Joh 15:8-17
8 "My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so  prove to be My disciples.  9 "Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.  10 " If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.  11 " These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.

12 "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.  13 " Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.  14 "You are My friends if you do what I command you.  15 "No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.  16 " You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.  17 "This I command you, that you love one another.

Joh 17:22-26
22 "The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one;  23  I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.  24 "Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.
25 "O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me;  26 and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them."

Gal 2:20
 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

The apostle Paul described God’s love, and praised God’s  love, and assured us that we would always have – God’s love.

1Co 13:1-13
1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of  prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind and  is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,  6  does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7  bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of  prophecy, they will be done away; if there are  tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

I’ll never forget when what Romans 5:5 was saying first hit me. How the Spirit pours the love of God into our hearts.  What a comfort!

Rom 5:1-5
1  Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. 3  And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; 4 and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; 5 and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Rom 8:31-39
31  What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? 33 Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies; 34 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 Just as it is written,

"FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG;
WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED."

37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We need God’s love – and as believers in Christ, as God’s sons and daughters  -  we have it!

This is how He loves us!

1Jo 3:1
See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are.

One of my most cherished documents is a list of 50 facts about who  we are in Christ. 

We have it on our web site:

Who you are: What it means to be a Christian

I have a special folder with that list inside.

I read it to myself over and over again.

It reminds me just how much God my Father loves me.

Is that subjective?

Sure.

Is it simplistic, and childlike?  Perhaps.

Is it wonderful?

You betcha it is!

Are there days when it’s a life saver for my hurting heart?

Absolutely.

So no, this blog won’t have anything in it that you haven’t heard before probably, no heavy revvies. Nothing you can turn to your Christian friend and say look what we learned from our pastor this week.

Sometimes you just gotta  hear once again that God loves you.

Until the next time, we’re all ….

In His grip,

Pastor John

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