CAN WE KNOW TRUE LOVE?
By Glenda Ward
McDowell County
The answer is yes. God is love and we can know love with a resounding yes. We have been given the capacity to know true love, enjoy true love, live in true love, and give true love. God is our source of love because God Himself is love. God’s love has been poured out upon us and into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. God demonstrates His own love for us in that: while we were still sinners, Christ Jesus, God’s only Son was sent to die for our sins. While we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son. The Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit to fill our lives with love and to enable us to live by His power. (Acts 1:8). The love that caused Christ Jesus to die for us is the same love that sends the Holy Spirit to live in us and guide us every day. (Reference Romans 5:5-11).
Love comes from God. He sent His One and Only Son into the World so that we might live through Him. This is love: that God sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sin. Love is a choice and an action. (Reference 1 Corinthians 13:4-7). God is the source of love. Jesus is our example of what it means to love. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to love. The Holy Spirit lives in our hearts which makes us more like Jesus. God wants a loving response from us. God’s love for us caused Him to seek a solution to the problem of sin. His love is also why we receive eternal life. He will forever express His love to us.
God is absolute goodness. Nothing sinful or evil can exist in God’s presence. He cannot overlook, condone, or excuse sin as if it never happened; but He loves us, and if we trust in Jesus, we do not have to bear the penalty for our sins (1 Peter 2:24). We can be acquitted (Romans 5:18) by His atoning sacrifice Jesus Christ. Jesus is our defense attorney. He can stand before God as our mediator because His death satisfied the wrath of God against sin and paid the death penalty for our sins. Through Him, we are forgiven and cleansed. This is True Love! This is what God has done. No one, no matter what sin has been committed, is beyond forgiveness. All we have to do is turn from sin, receive Christ’s forgiveness, and commit our hearts to Him as Lord and Savior. (Reference 1 John 4:7-10; 2:2)
The family of God includes all who have believed in Him in the past, all who believe in the present, and all who will believe in the future. We are all family because we have the same Father. He is the source of all creation, the rightful owner of everything. God promises His love and power to His family and the church.
God’s love is total. It reaches every corner of our experience. It is long – it reaches the length of our lives. It is deep – it reaches the depths of discouragement, despair, and even death. It is wide – it reaches out to the whole world. It is high – it rises to the heights of our celebration and elation. God tells us how great His love is. And Christ’s death for us is proof of His unconquerable love. We can never be lost to God’s love who is in Christ Jesus as Lord. (Reference Ephesians 3:14-19; Romans 8:35-39). God looks at us as if we had died with Christ. Because our sins died with Him. We are no longer condemned. (Colossians 2:13-15). Our Christian life began when, in unity with Him, we died to our old life. (See Romans 6:5-11). In our daily lives, we must regularly crucify sinful desires that keep us from following Christ Jesus. (Reference Galatians 20). And in our daily life, we have Christ’s resurrection power as we continue to fight sin. Christ lives in us. He is our reason for living.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me on the Cross.” THIS IS TRUE LOVE!
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Glenda Ward is a member of Grand View Baptist Church in McDowell County and is a Christian writer/author of “Something to Think About” – weekly Christian Articles. She finds purpose and joy in writing Church Programs & Bulletins, VBS Material, Christmas and Easter Programs, Memorials, and now expanding to include weekly articles to other churches, as well as writings to include Christian-based articles on Relationships in Marriage; all material based on the KJV of the Bible. From personal experience, I hope to set an example of how to serve a risen Savior and live by the Holy Spirit with joy. My goal is to help people partake of the better option in life to experience the transforming power that is available in Christ Jesus today. You can read more, good, Christian news from Glenda HERE.
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