The Foundation of Love

God loves you. The most common response I get is, “I am not sure about that,” or “I don’t believe it.” People use their standards of what love is to measure the love of God.  God really does love you! “I know better than to believe that, I have done so many things wrong. How could He possible love someone like me? I have stolen, lied, and cheated all of my life. How can God love me out of all people?” Well, you are right about one thing. God cannot love you for the sins you have committed, but God does love you. Not for your sake, He loves you for His own. God can love anyone regardless of how sinful they may be.  For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. Romans 5:7-9 NKJV

God, the Almighty, all Powerful, all Knowing, uncreated Being, coming from no one, owing no one is the foundation of all love. This wonderful love of God, Holy, and blameless that is spearheaded by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit pouring out their love and devotion to one other in eternal, infinite power no man can possibly understand. How many Fathers have given up their Son for you? How many Kings have stepped off their throne for you?  We cannot compare our understanding of love with the love of God. It is impossible to comprehend His glory. Oh Lord blessed are You to just show us a glimpse of the wonderful relationship You have created for those who love you. All power honor and glory to our heavenly Father, and to our King and Savior Jesus Christ, and to our comforter, our councilor, the Holy Spirit.

 “Let us make man in our own image.” God loves us because we are part of His power and glory. He loves the angels because they are holy. When Lucifer and his band fell from power God did not make a way for them to escape the penalty for their sins. You cannot stand before the temple of God for thousands of years worshiping Him, and the next day turn against Him, thinking everything is going to go your way. Such presumption is sin. However, God permitted them to continue on their way after they sinned.  God is using their fallen state to expose sin and eradicate sin from the universe. Through Lucifer and his cohorts God is testing man to see just who is for Him and who is against Him. His and our ultimate goal is a sinless universe where all creatures live at peace with each other.

God loves that part of us that came from Him. He does not love or condone sin, but by exposing sin through the law and offering us a way to escape the law He has afforded us something that is more precious than all the gold in the world. He has provided us salvation through the sacrificial death of His Son. God sees in Jesus Christ what you would have been if you had not sinned.  For the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God. John 16:27 NKJV For those of us who believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God we receive the eternal love of God, and through Christ our sins are wiped clean.

There will come a day that God no longer loves those of us who refuse to obey His will. The holy will become holier, and the unclean will get even filthier to the point that God cannot find anything left in us to reflect His image. When man sales himself out to the devil and continues to act immorally, God will no longer love the lost man. So when man removes the image of God from within him destruction comes.  God grieves over us now because He hopes we will turn away from sin and turn towards Him. However, if we continue to go against His will we are given over to a degenerative mind. Lost for eternity even while we are still on this earth.

There is nothing like the love of God.  But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) Ephesians 2:4-5 NKJV  He can only love us as long as He can see a trace of His glory in us. God still cherishes the fond memories He shared with us in the garden and longs for the fellowship we had with Him prior to our birth. The voice of God calling, “Please come home. Please fellowship with Me so I can bring you back to the place we were, so we can once again share the everlasting love we had prior to the birth of sin.

Please be still with me for a moment, bow your heads, and close your eyes. Pray with me. Dear heavenly Father, I would like to take part in the everlasting love You have promised us through Your word. Forgive me of my sins, Father, and accept me back into the fold of Your loving kindness. Penetrate my dark heart with the wonderful light of Your Son, restore my name in the Book of Life, and lead me in all Your ways. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.

  The Holy Spirit reveals to us that we are sinners, just as unbelief in itself is the proof of sin.  Few people believe they are going to hell. We want to believe that heaven is for real and will be our final destination. However, if we believe heaven is for real then we must concede that hell is for real too. It saddens me that many souls keep their hearts  hardened so they cannot sense the call of God. They are deaf and blind to spiritual matters, and only reflect an outward understanding of eternal life. If sin is what God says it is, if hell is what God says it is, and if God sent His only Son to die for you on the cross is it too much for Him to ask you to stand up for what is right, and let the world know to whom you belong? Closet Christians are enemies of the cross, and if you are not willing to side with Christ then why would you feel you are entitled to a place in heaven.

Our life is on loan to us from God, and it is sacred. If we take this sacred life and exclude the knowledge of God we loose our moral vales of right from wrong. We cannot discern good from evil so all of our thoughts appear to be justified. Our lies will become truth to us, and truth will appear to be a lie. When we give something to someone else it is gone from us, but when God gives something He does not give anything up. So when He gives us life He is still the life because without Him there is no life to be had. When He gives us the power of life He does not give that power away. Just as when He gives wisdom, or knowledge He still retains that wisdom and knowledge for Himself. He gives grace to others, however He never separates Himself from grace. Again, there is no life without God. He is the very essence of our beings and we will never fully know what life is until we confess that it is a gift from God.

David was the king of Israel. He was a liar, deceiver, adulterer, and a murderer. Yet  God raised up for them David as king, to whom also He gave testimony and said, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will.’ Acts 13:22 NKJV  When David threw himself down on the ground to confess and turn from his sins he exclaimed, “Deliver me from all my transgressions; Do not make me the reproach of the foolish.” Psalm 39:7 NKJV His conviction brought him to his knees. The awareness of his guilt made him cry out to God for forgiveness. He took what no man has a right to take. He took another man’s life. He violated a life created by God, and God yet forgave him even though the nearest thing to killing God is the taking of someone else’s life.

There is hope for you and me. Christ sacrificed His life and offered His sinless body for the redemption of mankind. If God can forgive the Hitler’s, the Mussolini’s, and the Stalin’s of this world then God can forgive you and me. God the Father turned a cross into an altar, and condemned His only Son to death so that we may have life everlasting, full of hope and glory. It is never too late to turn to God, for when we do our sins are forgiven. Everything we have ever done to anyone and ourselves is forgiven, forgotten, and washed away by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Won’t you come?