GLORIFYING GOD: (cont’d)
8. Through our love – As human beings in our physical plane we cannot love as deeply and completely as God can nor can we even understand it this side of heaven. The Bible tells us not only does God love us but that God IS love! Could any one of us have sentenced our only child, our firstborn son, to die a horrible death on the cross for another person, a total stranger who was not even a good person but a terrible sinner?
Ephesians 5:2 – And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.
Don’t kid yourself. I couldn’t and wouldn’t make that kind of sacrifice and neither would you. Your Father and mine loved us enough to do this for us. If God’s emotions allow him to experience love and joy at an infinitely greater level than us it also means God experiences pain and grief much more profoundly than we do. God is reciprocal in all things. We can’t have the good without also having the bad. God would never take steps to ease his pain and suffering and we see that clearly in the life of Jesus. Jesus is God!
John 3:16 – (Jesus speaking) – For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Romans 15:5-6 – Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
John 15:8 – (Jesus speaking) – By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.
In the New Testament Jesus said the two greatest commandments are to love God and to love one another. Both commandments are about love. I believe the main theme in Heaven is going to be love. Love will be the secret ingredient that makes heaven heaven. Jesus Christ showed us perfectly how to love while he walked among us and we are all commanded to emulate Christ in our lives and thereby glorify God.
Galatians 2:20 – I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Loving like God loves doesn’t come natural to us and if that is hard for believers to fully comprehend you know it is virtually impossible for the nonbeliever to understand that kind of love. Only as a saved child of God can we begin to understand God’s love, what it must have cost God personally to save us and how much we’re loved by our Father. It’s easy to love God because God first loved us.
Matthew 5:16 – (Jesus speaking) – Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
Luke 6:45 – (Jesus speaking) – A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
John 7:38 – (Jesus speaking) – He who believes in Me, Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
As you read your Bible regularly (daily I hope) you’ll find yourself loving God more and more. God loves us deeply and we are priceless in his sight and this comes across clearly in the Bible. As we realize God’s love for us our hearts naturally overflow with love for God in return and the “good fruit” of our heart will manifest itself for all to see. Over time it will become easier and easier for us to love God, ourselves and others as we abide in Christ.
2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 – Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.
I’m an introvert by nature and I’m pretty much self-sufficient. Loving and showing love never came easy for me. The more I meditate on God and study his word the more love I feel for all men. I have an increased capacity to love believers and nonbelievers alike. The fruit of my heart is that I show my love through my constantly worry about all those lost souls headed for hell and what I ought to be doing about it. Not a day goes by that I don’t ask myself, “What more can I do?”
Titus 3:4-8 – But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
My Christian blog site, www.onemoreforjesus.net, was created for this reason. By my passive witnessing online I just wanted to help save one more person for the kingdom of God while at the same time exhorting them to study God’s Word for knowledge, understanding and wisdom. I seek to keep one more person from spending an eternity in hell by my “passive” witness for Christ. I pray that God will give me, “onemoreforjesus.”
John 15:13 – (Jesus speaking) – Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
Mind you, I still don’t have enough love in me to give up one of my children for a lost soul but I’m at the point where I would give up my life if that was the only way to keep someone out of hell. I can justify that sacrifice in my mind because momentary pain is nothing when weighed against keeping someone out of the lake of fire for billions and billions of years. How could I not make that sacrifice for a fellow human being, someone I love? I can’t come anywhere close to God’s love but I can see where he is coming from.