1 John 4:8 "God is Love"
Christians need to experience God's love desperately. It is a hurting world that needs's His love, but we cannot give away what we don't have. Rich Mullins was a strong Christian that still had to learn about God's love. Once he did it forever changed him. He started reaching out to "un-churched people" and they just loved him even though he was a Christian.
The musician/song writer Rich Mullins was transformed by a statement made to him by Dave Busby (a youth pastor), "There is nothing you can do to make God love you more, there is nothing you can do to make God love you less."
"God's love is for us is not based on what we do or don't do. The love God has for each of us springs from His nature because God is love. It's not based on our performance and it is not diminished because of our failures. God's love is the same constantly." - James Bryan Smith
A homosexual man was hanging out with Rich Mullins in the mountains, (actually giving him a ride to his camp- they had just met). The man said, "I should probabaly tell you I'm gay." Rich replied "Well I should probabaly tell you that I'm a Christian."
The man asked him , "Do you want me to let you out? " Rich said, "No. Why would I want that?" To which the man replied, "I thought christians hated gays." Immediately Rich responded , "I thought christians were supposed to love, it is our first command from Jesus."
When the newly met friend asked Rich if God hated gays Rich replied , "That's funny I thought God loved you, God is love." The man wanted to know if he would go to hell. So the rest of the conversation I will paraphrase so as not to plagarize James Bryan Smith's biography of Rich Mullins entitled An Arrow Pointing Toward Heaven.
Rich basically told the man "You are gay and I lie, lust and sin." We are all sinners! But we are sinners whom God loves. (My paraphrase which is not near as funny- funny in the sense in which Rich comments on himself.) "We all sin but we will only go to hell if we reject the grace that God longs to give us in Christ Jesus."
There is a hell, however as one great pastor (Malcolm Smith) said, "The only way we can get to hell is to fight thru God's love and to fight thru His cross - reject His love and reject His cross of Christ Jesus. " If you saw the movie the passion of Christ you see that Christ went to great lengths to redeem you, He suffered so much because He loves you so much!!
God doesn't love you because of who you are (or even who you are not), He loves you because of Who HE IS! He is love and He has paid the way for you to come back to Him - to become a brand new person - to become His child- and to have fellowship by His Holy Spirit.
If you are a believer please start abiding on that Love, claim it, believe it, then share it!
till next time - SJ
Sunday, November 9, 2008
God is Love Part 2
1 John 4:8 "God is love."
I want to make clear this blog is not only for non-christians but for christians. We desperately need to know God's love! Now to my article
Did you ever wonder why God created us? He did not need us because He was fully content in the Perfect Fellowship of The Holy Trinity. God is love and He was perfectly happy pouring out love - Father to Son, Son to Father, Father to Spirit, Spirit to FAther, Jesus to Holy Spirit, Spirit to Jesus.
But The Father chose to adopt us as His children before the world was created (see Ephesians chapter 1). God wanted something, someone else to pour out His love upon for no other reason than to bless them...to bless us. The very reason He created us was to love Him and be loved by Him. God created us to worship Him and enjoy Him.
Now you say - "Wait, creating us to worship Him is selfish, right??" My answer is no! Not if you really understand what worship truly is. To worship something is to gorge on it, to be caught up in it forgetting all else. Ever notice how we can become gluttons and make idols of sex, money, power, food...etc. That is because we were made to fill that gluttonour hole with God's love. That IS worship.
The most loving thing God could ever do is allow us to worship Him. For to worship Him is to "see" Him by faith. In The Psalms it says things like "taste & see that The LORD is good" and "Lord at your right hand are pleasures ever more" and also"Your love is better than life!!" .
Peter said that in really knowing Jesus deeply would bring a "joy unspeakable and full of glory."
This is also NOT selfish because The Father directs worship to His Son. He made us to bless His Son. We are called (collectively) The Bride, and also a gift to Jesus, and also His little brothers and sisters. Jesus on the other hand made us to worship His Father. But then again to worship God, to truly glorify Him (are you ready for this) is to enjoy Him forever!!
We have been called into this love celebration!! Father loving Son, Son loving Father, Father and Son now both loving us along with His Holy Spirit filling us with His life. It gets better....we then were called, next, to love one another - human loving humans!! It is a love cycle.
Get this: we were created to contain and express God's love; better said: We were made to know God's love and make that love known. To know God is to know love becaus God is love. We simply open ourselves up to receive His love and let that love flow thru us - back to Him in gratitute and worship and to our fellow man.
This happens when we connect to God's agent, His instrument of love - Jesus Christ. Jesus said that He was the vine (or in modern terms the tree) and we are the branches. We plug into Jesus to re-connect back to God , for all mankind in his dysfuntionalism has sinned and torn away from God. But Jesus is the way back. For people who are already christians - Jesus IS the way to experience this love.
Fill up on His love today!
SJ
I want to make clear this blog is not only for non-christians but for christians. We desperately need to know God's love! Now to my article
Did you ever wonder why God created us? He did not need us because He was fully content in the Perfect Fellowship of The Holy Trinity. God is love and He was perfectly happy pouring out love - Father to Son, Son to Father, Father to Spirit, Spirit to FAther, Jesus to Holy Spirit, Spirit to Jesus.
But The Father chose to adopt us as His children before the world was created (see Ephesians chapter 1). God wanted something, someone else to pour out His love upon for no other reason than to bless them...to bless us. The very reason He created us was to love Him and be loved by Him. God created us to worship Him and enjoy Him.
Now you say - "Wait, creating us to worship Him is selfish, right??" My answer is no! Not if you really understand what worship truly is. To worship something is to gorge on it, to be caught up in it forgetting all else. Ever notice how we can become gluttons and make idols of sex, money, power, food...etc. That is because we were made to fill that gluttonour hole with God's love. That IS worship.
The most loving thing God could ever do is allow us to worship Him. For to worship Him is to "see" Him by faith. In The Psalms it says things like "taste & see that The LORD is good" and "Lord at your right hand are pleasures ever more" and also"Your love is better than life!!" .
Peter said that in really knowing Jesus deeply would bring a "joy unspeakable and full of glory."
This is also NOT selfish because The Father directs worship to His Son. He made us to bless His Son. We are called (collectively) The Bride, and also a gift to Jesus, and also His little brothers and sisters. Jesus on the other hand made us to worship His Father. But then again to worship God, to truly glorify Him (are you ready for this) is to enjoy Him forever!!
We have been called into this love celebration!! Father loving Son, Son loving Father, Father and Son now both loving us along with His Holy Spirit filling us with His life. It gets better....we then were called, next, to love one another - human loving humans!! It is a love cycle.
Get this: we were created to contain and express God's love; better said: We were made to know God's love and make that love known. To know God is to know love becaus God is love. We simply open ourselves up to receive His love and let that love flow thru us - back to Him in gratitute and worship and to our fellow man.
This happens when we connect to God's agent, His instrument of love - Jesus Christ. Jesus said that He was the vine (or in modern terms the tree) and we are the branches. We plug into Jesus to re-connect back to God , for all mankind in his dysfuntionalism has sinned and torn away from God. But Jesus is the way back. For people who are already christians - Jesus IS the way to experience this love.
Fill up on His love today!
SJ
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
God IS Love part 1
The Amazing Word of Life recorded in 1 John 4:8 tell us the good new "God is love." The greek word for love here is "agape." This tells us that He IS love. He doesn't just have love or give love. He IS love in His very nature and character and substance. Love describes Who He is.
To quote Malcolm Smith (to paraphrase)- If I say I have a glass of water is one thing. To say "I am the earth's supply of all water " is completely another. God is the source of love and true divine love (agape) comes from Him.
This word agape means - "unconditional love" or "a love that loves someone who is unlovealble." Another definition is "a love that sacrifices with no regard to getting aything in return" and also "to love someone with no strings attached", "to love a person not based on their merits or performance."
A final definition is "a love that focuses on the other party's good and well being (without regard to self or the cost)." Love starts within the Trinity. The FAther loves His Son (Yeshua - Jesus in English translation). He wills to glorify His Son and His one condition for human beings is to trust Jesus Christ, to worship Jesus, to acknowledge Him. He wants to bless Jesus and He lives for this purpose. Father God (Abba - Romans 8:15) said in the Gospels, "This is My Beloved Son in Whom I delight."
Christ lives to Glorify His Father. He loves His FAther with a passionate love. Likewise Father and Son love each other and they love The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in turn "will not speak on His own but what He receives from Me" and "comes not to glorify Himself but to glorify Me." - (check it all out in John chapters 14-16). He loves The FAther and The Son. He lives to point to them & not to Himself. He does not draw attention to Himself but points to them.
Now it gets really interesting when we start to look at How God's love spills over to humanity. But for now (I will talk more of this in part 2) suffice it to say that God is complete and happy in Himself and does NOT need humans. (Now don't get mad this is a good thing!) Becuase He doesn't Needus He is therefore free to love us NOT because He is compelled by co-depenent feelings. He is not compelled but freely chooses to love us.
You see God loves us NOT because of who we are or what we do but because of Who HE IS!!
He is love and therefore can love a rapist and a monk exactly the same. That means our performance can't change His love. When we are good He loves us. When we blow it He loves us the same.
You say, "That's not fair!" That is where the cross comes in. You see God is both Just AND Love. He is perfectly Holy and cannot allow any sin however how minor to go unpunished. You see He is not unjust He is actually more just than we can possibly comprehend. He is perfectly Holy and He hates sin because He is so holy and pure. But He loves US! He is so pure that He has to punish even a lie. (We are dysfunctional and think that He should grade on the curve - you know Hitler deserves hell but we should get heaven because we have never murdered). That is preposterous! We must see sin thru HIS eyes - even a lie is deserving of death! (now don't get mad- this will get good I promise!)
The good news is that's where Jesus and The Cross comes in. God is just and Holy so He solved this dilema (because He is also merciful) by dying on the cross for us. Christ took our punishment from God and therefore God retains His justice while still being Love. Theologians have made the statement "At the cross Justice and Mercy kiss."
OK - before we get too into this- let me get practical. Do you know that God loves you unconditionally? Now matter how you perform, if you never did another good thing He would love you the same. BUT- the key is that we have to receive this love, this saving love. If we want to have His love and experience His forgiveness we must be bound to Christ and have (all that He did on that cross) applied to us...personally and individually. How do we get that forgiveness, grace, and mercy applied to us? - One word - Faith! "Whoever believes in His will not perish but will have eternal life." (John 3:16) . "Believe (trust) in The Lord Jesus and you will be saved." (Acts 16:13).
It's that simple - bind yourself to Him Who is unconditi0nal love today.
In Christ- SJ
To quote Malcolm Smith (to paraphrase)- If I say I have a glass of water is one thing. To say "I am the earth's supply of all water " is completely another. God is the source of love and true divine love (agape) comes from Him.
This word agape means - "unconditional love" or "a love that loves someone who is unlovealble." Another definition is "a love that sacrifices with no regard to getting aything in return" and also "to love someone with no strings attached", "to love a person not based on their merits or performance."
A final definition is "a love that focuses on the other party's good and well being (without regard to self or the cost)." Love starts within the Trinity. The FAther loves His Son (Yeshua - Jesus in English translation). He wills to glorify His Son and His one condition for human beings is to trust Jesus Christ, to worship Jesus, to acknowledge Him. He wants to bless Jesus and He lives for this purpose. Father God (Abba - Romans 8:15) said in the Gospels, "This is My Beloved Son in Whom I delight."
Christ lives to Glorify His Father. He loves His FAther with a passionate love. Likewise Father and Son love each other and they love The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in turn "will not speak on His own but what He receives from Me" and "comes not to glorify Himself but to glorify Me." - (check it all out in John chapters 14-16). He loves The FAther and The Son. He lives to point to them & not to Himself. He does not draw attention to Himself but points to them.
Now it gets really interesting when we start to look at How God's love spills over to humanity. But for now (I will talk more of this in part 2) suffice it to say that God is complete and happy in Himself and does NOT need humans. (Now don't get mad this is a good thing!) Becuase He doesn't Needus He is therefore free to love us NOT because He is compelled by co-depenent feelings. He is not compelled but freely chooses to love us.
You see God loves us NOT because of who we are or what we do but because of Who HE IS!!
He is love and therefore can love a rapist and a monk exactly the same. That means our performance can't change His love. When we are good He loves us. When we blow it He loves us the same.
You say, "That's not fair!" That is where the cross comes in. You see God is both Just AND Love. He is perfectly Holy and cannot allow any sin however how minor to go unpunished. You see He is not unjust He is actually more just than we can possibly comprehend. He is perfectly Holy and He hates sin because He is so holy and pure. But He loves US! He is so pure that He has to punish even a lie. (We are dysfunctional and think that He should grade on the curve - you know Hitler deserves hell but we should get heaven because we have never murdered). That is preposterous! We must see sin thru HIS eyes - even a lie is deserving of death! (now don't get mad- this will get good I promise!)
The good news is that's where Jesus and The Cross comes in. God is just and Holy so He solved this dilema (because He is also merciful) by dying on the cross for us. Christ took our punishment from God and therefore God retains His justice while still being Love. Theologians have made the statement "At the cross Justice and Mercy kiss."
OK - before we get too into this- let me get practical. Do you know that God loves you unconditionally? Now matter how you perform, if you never did another good thing He would love you the same. BUT- the key is that we have to receive this love, this saving love. If we want to have His love and experience His forgiveness we must be bound to Christ and have (all that He did on that cross) applied to us...personally and individually. How do we get that forgiveness, grace, and mercy applied to us? - One word - Faith! "Whoever believes in His will not perish but will have eternal life." (John 3:16) . "Believe (trust) in The Lord Jesus and you will be saved." (Acts 16:13).
It's that simple - bind yourself to Him Who is unconditi0nal love today.
In Christ- SJ
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