In this is love, not that we have loved God but that HE LOVED US AND SENT HIS SON to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:10 ESV

       How can we explain God’s love?  I have often heard the statement, “If God is so loving, why does he allow so much evil, suffering, and pain to happen?”  This question is asked many times because one may be trying to comprehend, or to make sense of God’s love from a human perspective.  Another reason is that one may have experienced so much pain in life that, in short … they just don’t believe in a God who allowed it to be so for them. 

As a Christian much might not make sense even to me, but this one thing I know; God’s love is unexplainable.  When we try to make sense of God’s love, are we really attempting to tell God how he should perform or behave in life situations?  How do we respond when someone has done us wrong?  Be honest!!!    Most of the time, in our flesh, we do not wish them well.  In fact, a vindictive spirit may swell up inside us as well as our anger increase when thinking of that person. 

God was wronged because he made and gave everything good to Adam and Eve, and they chose sin against Him over obedience to Him.  Their sin has been passed on to each one of us, and we, too, sin and suffer the consequence of their decision by the inherited nature of sin.  It is spiritual genetics so to speak.  When going to a doctor for an examination, I am asked questions concerning my father, mother, and others in my family tree concerning their health.  Why? Because we tend to inherit health genes from our family.  When they find out the genes of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc is in your family history, they advise you how you might change that family history by taking certain precautions.  Like it or not we have inherited the sin gene too, and it is terminal. 

The question returns: how could a God of love allow this, and why doesn’t he do something?  Answer… he did,  He loved us and sent his Son.  When a person has wronged us many times,  in our limited power we remove that person from our life.  As far as we are concern they may cease to even exist in our world.  God does not have limited power, and if he operated in that logic, he could have made us disappear, and we would not be here to ask the question why.  The question why is an important question, but it needs to be why would God love us instead of erasing us?   The answer is just that…. LOVE.  Not a love that we can even begin to understand, but it is love nevertheless. 

If the Devil can continue to whisper in your ear the questioning of God’s love in life circumstances,  he will successfully do in your life what he did in Adam and Eve’s.  He will cause you to doubt God and follow his instruction of deception and not reveal the ultimate consequence for that decision.   Has it ever occurred to you to blame the Devil for all the evil in the world instead of God and become angry with  the Devil for evil, pain, and suffering? 

God sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins, making right everything the Devil has destroyed, so in reality God has done something.  He, in love, died for our sins in his Son Jesus.  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV   As Christians, we are on a journey to the inheritance of eternal life made possible by God through Jesus.   So how should we live as we make this journey as a Child of God?

LOVE ONE ANOTHER:

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  1 John 4:11 ESV 

    When the question arises, “Why isn’t God doing something?”,  let us as Christians be the answer to that question by loving one another so much that they see God / Jesus.  The best exclamation of God’s love many times is the life lived purposely loving each other in all situations.  This gives evidence to the reality of God in your life.  No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 1 John 4:12 ESV  In short, as the old hymn goes …While passing thro’  this world of sin, and others your life shall view.  Be clean and sure without, within; let others see Jesus in you. (Song by Tony Weeks)  When they see Jesus in us , they will see love.    

ABIDE / LIVE IN LOVE:

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.  So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.  God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 1 John 4: 15-16 ESV

     777 Love Avenue should be the address of the Christian.  It is the place we live, not a place we visit.  Jesus came and lived in the flesh among us, and every where he went he showed the love of his Father…. God.  Believers are the temple of the Holy Spirit which is the third person of the God head living in you as a Christian.  We should never quench the Spirit of love by living contrary to the example set for us by Jesus.  We are to be servants and our motivation should be to live in love.  The love that abides in us should be a love that the world may not understand, but does want.  When love is perfected in our lives, it will accomplish more for God than anything else we could do, for it is a reflection of who God is and his very nature of love.   

ALWAYS REMEMBER…. HE LOVED US AND SENT HIS SON:

     This season is a time of remembering the Birth of Jesus and the reason he came – to save sinners by being the perfect lamb of God.  Jesus, who was God in the flesh, lived 30 years and then began a 3 year ministry showing the love of his Father.  At the end of His third year of ministry he hung upon a cross for my sin and yours knowing he was doing something about all the questions concerning why. 

Know this. Jesus is the answer even if you might not even know how to ask the question.   While He was on the cross they insulted him, spit on him, taunted him, and the list goes on and on.  His reply to those who looked on…. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34 ESV  Jesus never asked why when going to the cross, for  he knew why and was obedient even when it caused him to suffer and die.  Why? It was for the love that God had for us.  A love that  would rather suffer and die than erase us from the world. 

There is so much that is beyond my /our comprehension and God’s love is one of them.  I may not be able to totally grasp his love, but I am thankful for it, and want to live in it….. with all my limitations, may I do so, that the world might get a glimpse of God’s love.   Let me encourage all Christians in the faith to do the same.

APPLICATION:

      We should be doing this all year long, but over the next few days  let me challenge you to do something on purpose in love for someone.  Do it with the purpose of showing God’s love for that person by action, by giving, or by any other way that will affect that person.  Please don’t make it generic, but  make it personal to the person / persons you are wanting to show God’s love to.  By generic I mean don’t just drop a dollar or two toward a charity… even as important as this may be as well.  Again make it intentional and personal.  Perhaps that person may even ask, “why,” and you will have the answer… to show God’s love, which hopefully will give you the opportunity to share the whole gospel of God’s love.  

Because of His Grace ~ Pastor David