A Reflection On the Love of God
How is God's love for you in Christ comforting your heart and shaping your life today?
According to the Bible, God's love for his people will have a powerful influence over their lives—even reaching to the level of bedrock motivations. In II Corinthians 5:14-15 we read the following:
14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
There is so much that could (and should) be said about the truths contained in these verses. Yet for now, I simply offer this short reflection (below) in the hopes that it will stir up your own joy in God.
A Reflection On the Love of God
Perhaps one the greatest prayers we could pray is that God would grant us the humility of heart to rightly comprehend the absurdity of his loving-mercy toward us in Christ. This is exactly what the Apostle Paul cried out for in Ephesians 3:14-19:
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
The infinitely glorious, eternal, and all-sufficient God has stooped low to save his undeserving enemies at the cost of his own blood. An eternity of judgment for our sins has been taken away by the willingness of Christ to suffer the wrath of God in our place! O that we would be given fresh eyes to see and marvel at the gospel of our salvation, (Ps. 51:12)!
Truly, there is nothing in any one of us that should have brought forth this glorious work of redemption; no merit or goodness in us that gave unction to its achievement, (II Tim. 1:9). Instead, our salvation is grounded in the wildly extravagant and free love of God alone; it issues not from man's goodness (of which there is none!), but from God's sovereign grace, (Jm. 1:18). It was “in [God's] love” alone that we were chosen in Christ "before the foundation of the world," (Eph. 1:4).
This truth is not, as some presume, merely the "elementary message" of Christianity—as if we soon outgrow it and move on to other things. Rather, this truth—the gospel of our salvation!—is the very alphabet by which we shall spell the glory of God for all eternity. Though simple enough to be understood by a child, it is of such inexhaustible depth as to never be fully-mapped by even the most learned of Christian teachers.
And so I ask you again, as you make your way through the everyday routines of home life, work, school, etc.:
How is God's love for you in Christ comforting your heart and shaping your life today? Are you drinking deeply from the well of life? Are you abiding in Christ as you live for his glory in this world?