Where and how does the love of God come to us? In and through Christ Jesus remains the answer. God approaches us through the merciful hands of the resurrected Jesus who reaches out to us. A sinless, perfect God is approachable through Jesus Christ his Son. We know no sinful man can look upon God, for He is too terrifyingly holy, perfect, exact, without sin or shadow of imperfection. He is God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. (1 Timothy 6:15-16) We who are alive IN JESUS CHRIST have a nearness to God because of Jesus’ work at the cross. Jesus the precious, perfect lamb of God died on the cross for a destined place in the heart of God. The perfect lamb without blemish was set upon the altar to be slaughtered in our place. We who are imperfect, blemished forever by sin, were spared death by the sacrifice of the Perfect One. The disciples gave their lives because of this reality of life in the spirit: the gift of God IS ETERNAL LIFE. They knew the Lamb’s perfectness was forever their perfection, and that for eternity, they would hold a royal place in God’s intimate family. He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Because of Jesus we become co-heirs with him in the family of God. We are hidden in his sacrifice, in his goodness. We take on the characteristics of the Perfect One. We have been predestined to be like the Lord. No human being, even though made in God’s image, can enter into the presence of God without holiness. Eternity will not tolerate sin that leads to disorder, chaos, and death. God is none of those conditions, for He is organized, exact, and pure. All of eternity falls under his will of perfection. Humans are wobblers: good and bad, right and wrong; every inconsistency exists in us. Because of our need and his great love for us, God gave us his Son who is perfect, righteous, and abides forever. In Malachi, the people questioned whether God loved them. This doubt did not please God. “I have loved you,” says the Lord. (Malachi 1:2) Then He goes on to remind them of his love. This message of love is exactly what John 3:16 says: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. God made us in his image, loves us with an eternal love, and allows nothing to separate us from this love. Even our sins cannot separate us from the enduring love God has for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Of course, no one can separate us from God’s magnificent, eternal affection towards his creation. Christians sometimes too easily say, I love the sinner, but not his sin. We must be careful with that saying, for it can be very judgmental. We might be saying, when he or she comes around to our idea of how to live an upright life, then I will unreservedly love him or her. This limits God’s love. He loved his creation so much that He gave his Son while we were all outside of his perfection, still in sin. His love is unconditional. Are we unconditional in our love? A question we need to answer; for if not, we might have the wrong appraisal of ourselves. We might not comprehend how we actually look through God’s lens of holiness. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:8)
The knowledge of God’s great love for us should change our lives. If God is for us, who can be against us? Nothing should interfere with our Christian lives because we know that God is with us in power and authority. Our testimony should be bold, without retraction, without fear. As Paul understood through his life of difficulty that God’s love for him was so secure that he could face anything. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long, we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. He lived knowing that he was more than a conqueror through the God who loved him. Do we live the same life of fearless dedication to God, or are we more likely to hide our testimony when we feel insecure in who we are IN CHRIST, or who we are IN GOD’S LOVE? Paul was confronted by Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. At that time, Paul had been given the authority and commission to track down Christians in foreign cities such as Damascus. He took these Christians as prisoners back to Jerusalem to be imprisoned, tortured, and even killed unless they cursed Jesus. Paul’s commission to attack the church was changed by a bright light. There on the road, he met Jesus. In his testimony before King Agrippa he said, I obeyed that vision from heaven. I preached first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that all must repent of their sins and turn to God—and prove they have changed by the good things they do. (Acts 26:19-20, NLT) His calling changed in a moment of time from tracking down Christians to do them harm to preaching the Good News: all must repent of their sins and turn to God and do good. How do we turn to God? By accepting his Son’s sacrifice for our lives. We accept his life by surrendering ours! But notice that in his testimony, Paul also talks about what our lives should be like if we really turn to God. He says that we should be doing good. Doing good proves that we have been changed, that we have been made new creatures. So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith. (Galatians 6:9-10, NLT) Our lives should reflect Jesus’ life. He was baptized in water and in the Holy Spirit. After his baptism in the Spirit, He went around doing good, delivering people from the oppression of sin. We who know the love of God, who bask in this love, should be fearless in doing God’s will. Our testimony should be one of praying for people and of helping people through the struggles of life. God has given us his enduring love. We should give this same love to others. We are to love our neighbors, our enemies, and sinners as ourselves. If nothing can separate us from God’s love, then nothing in this world should separate us from loving others with God’s love.
We have been given great presents from God to give to others. These wonderful gifts are not from our storehouse of grace and mercy, but from the eternal storehouse of God’s heart. The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23) When we turn to Jesus, when we discover the grace and mercy of God through the sacrifice of his Son on the cross, we discover the love of God in reality. The Holy Spirit produces his gift of life in our hearts. His gifts, the elements of the fruit of the Spirit that God harvests from our lives, are presents that we can unwrap and give to the world. Paul says that we should prove ourselves as Christians by giving the above fruit to the world. Every day, we should strive to reveal this fruit. If we display the opposite of these characteristics to the world, we are dishonoring the work on the cross. We are giving defiled gifts to the world, not the holiness that God wants the world to know. We are his ambassadors. We are to express his likeness, not the world’s likeness. We are to give mercy and grace when people do not deserve such actions. Jesus said, By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (John 13:35) Paul obeyed the vision of Christ on the road to Damascus and became God’s instrument of love. Notice in his account, that Jesus came to him at noontime when the sun was the brightest, but Paul and the others saw a light brighter than the brightness of the sun. This brightness that Paul saw should be in us, a supernatural brightness. Jesus talks about this brightness in his sermon on the mountain. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. (Matthew 5: 41) When Jesus asked the Jews to go an extra mile with a Roman soldier who demands them to carry his pack, the brightness of God was being revealed. When Jesus asks us to love our enemies, the brightness of God is being revealed. When God asks you to display the attributes of the Holy Spirit, the brightness of God is being revealed in your life. Yes, God loves us with an eternal love. Nothing can separate us from that implacable love, but God asks us to love others in the same way as He loves us. That kind of love can come only from a new creature, a new creation, made by God through the work of his Son on the cross. We encourage you to remember what Paul wrote so eloquently in today’s scripture reading, For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
No comments:
Post a Comment