By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
(1 John 4:9-10, NASB)
Love is from God. Without a loving, merciful, gracious Creator, we wouldn’t know what true, selfless love is.
Think about it. God the Father loved us so much, He sent His Son—part of Himself—to wear human flesh. Jesus was a typical boy, I’m sure. He skinned His knee. He bumped His head. He may have been teased.
Then He grew to be a man. He worked as a carpenter. His muscles ached. He was drenched with sweat.
He began His earthly ministry. He walked miles and miles. He sat in the sun and taught. He healed—sometimes receiving gratitude, sometimes not.
Finally, He faced betrayal, arrest, denial, beatings, ridicule. And death in a most excruciatingly painful way.
All for us. All because of the Father’s abundant love for us. And He did this even for those who reject Him.
That’s love. And we who are God’s children can love selflessly as well. We can serve others. We can be gracious even when we’re being persecuted. We can let Christ shine through us. But we can’t love that way on our own. It’s only when we allow God’s love to permeate our very beings that we can love others.
And that’s exactly what God calls us to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment