Experiencing God’s Love.
Good Morning Friends,
The last two nights through my work we sponsored Silver Ring Thing Events in Southwest Florida to help youth develop healthy relationships. Against this backdrop of events entitled One Night Stands I would like to explore one of the best known of scriptures. You see in John 3:16 is an offer by God to help us find out how to love and be loved. The scripture has become so familiar that we forget to read it with fresh eyes. So I am not sure you have really thought through what it means especially in tandem with 1 Corinthians 13. Too often we read them with a focus on Jesus and church membership and that, of course, is true, but in so doing we miss at least part of what I think is the intent of the scriptures and the desired intimacy of a divine relationship that is nothing less than Experiencing God’s Love.
Scripture: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.’
John 3:16-21 (NRSV)
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
First Corinthians 13:4-7 (NRSV)
Message: Both Mahatma Gandhi and Jimi Hendrix have said, “The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.” Maybe they were right if it is God’s perfect love we are talking about… but even human love is powerful in its own right. Maybe love extends beyond boundaries but begins with God. But to experience God’s love we must first of all trust him by faith. This is where love becomes more than emotions, and it is much more than a good feeling. Here we get connected to something very special. Unfortunately, our society has taken what God has said about love, sex and intimacy and changed it into simply emotions and feelings. Thankfully God describes love in great detail in the Bible, especially in the Book of First Corinthians, chapter 13. To catch the full weight of God’s definition of love answer these questions that follow. How much would it meet your needs if a person loved you as God says we should be loved? What if this person responded to you with patience, kindness, and was not envious of you? What if this person was not boastful or prideful? How about if this person wasn’t rude toward you or self-seeking or easily angered? What if this person didn’t keep a record of your wrongs? How about if they refused to be deceitful, but always were truthful with you? What if this person protected you, trusted you, always hoped for your good, and persevered through conflicts with you? This is how God defines the love He wants us to experience in relationships. The key is to first experience being loved by God. Only then can true intimacy exist in our relationships with others.
Pray we know peace. Pray we love. Pray we entrust ourselves to Jesus Christ. Pray we are other person focused rather than self-seeking. Pray God gives us new love and new power day by day. Pray we are satisfied with the intimacy of experiencing God’s love in a way that prompts us to share it. Pray we also feel deeply connected to other people, fully seen and appreciated by them, and secure in those relationships in the light of Christ. Pray we stand for the right things.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 