In part 5 (click here to read part 5), we discovered that we already had God's love deposited in us through spiritual rebirth, but we needed to renew our minds with this knowledge to manifest it. Here we look at our response to the revelation of God's love for us.

(V). "And we ourselves know and believe the love which God has for us. God is love, and those who live in love live in union with God and God lives in union with them." (1 John 4:16 GNB)

We cannot operate in what we do not know that we have. We need a revelation of God’s love for us. We need to know the intensity and full extent of God’s love for us. We must understand its nature and eternal endurance. We must explore its lavish length, width, height and depth. The kind of knowledge referred to here is not that of mere mental assent, but of the kind of intimate knowledge between a man and a woman that produces life. When we meditate on how much God loves us and how unconditional it is, it will begin to stretch our realms of understanding, this is because we have no earthly frame of reference for such love. This is where we have to just accept by faith on the evidence of His love sacrifice that it is so.

1. "Christ died for us at a time when we were helpless and sinful. No one is really willing to die for an honest person, though someone might be willing to die for a truly good person. But God showed how much he loved us by having Christ die for us, even though we were sinful." (Romans 5:6-8 CEV)

(VI). "We love because God loved us first." (1 John 4:19 CEV)

The revelation derived from knowing His love for us, creates an automatic love response from us. This is the point of release of His love to others. This is the key to the proper motivation for all we do. The extent to which we enjoy a love relationship with God and with others is contingent on the revelation we have of how much God loves us.

1. "and I pray that Christ will make his home in your hearts through faith. I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love, so that you, together with all God's people, may have the power to understand how broad and long, how high and deep, is Christ's love. Yes, may you come to know his love---although it can never be fully known---and so be completely filled with the very nature of God." (Ephesians 3:17-19 GNB)

If you have to work up emotions to read His word, pray, do His will, follow the leading of His spirit; you have not yet been hooked on God’s love. It is the ultimate motivation by which we are to live in Him. We need to press into a revelation of God’s love until it radicalizes our lives beyond recognition. We were created to be addicted to God’s love. We are to be rooted and grounded in it; if we are to manifest the fullness of God that is in us.

Lost my first love

I wonder why?

Lost my first love

I wonder how?

My eyes must have gone dim

My heart must have grown dull

So that I beheld not His wondrous love

Hence my love response went cold

Was it the law?

The cares of this life?

This one thing I do know

His love for me has never changed

I will once again behold His love

Ponder upon its awesome display

There at the cross with arms outlaid

Drop by drop His life He gave

For one as me, when I didn't care

Way too amazing to for my mind to bear

My love response aflame again

(VII). "This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we're free of worry on Judgment Day--our standing in the world is identical with Christ's. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life--fear of death, fear of judgment--is one not yet fully formed in love." (1 John 4:17-18 MSG)

One of the main obstacles to understanding and receiving God’s love is the fear of judgment of sin, fear of not being god enough, fear of the consequences of failure, fear of loosing salvation and on and on the list goes. When we think God might change how He feels about us based on our actions and we know that we are bound to fall short at some point, we lack the confidence to enjoy God’s love without reservation as we keep looking behind our backs and perceive that God is disappointed in us. The text above makes it clear that the effect of a perfected revelation of God’s love will banish all such fears. God does not want us to live in fear as it is the enemies’ tool of torment and is based on nothing but lies. God’s love is unconditional, so nothing you do can change His love for you. He loved you at your worst and will love you no less as His beloved child. He never changes.

1. "But there is more! Now that God has accepted us because Christ sacrificed his life's blood, we will also be kept safe from God's anger. Even when we were God's enemies, he made peace with us, because his Son died for us. Yet something even greater than friendship is ours. Now that we are at peace with God, we will be saved by his Son's life. And in addition to everything else, we are happy because God sent our Lord Jesus Christ to make peace with us." (Romans 5:9-11 CEV)

2. "If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us--who was raised to life for us!--is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:" (Romans 8:32-35 MSG)

3. "Then he said, "There was once a man who had two sons. The younger said to his father, 'Father, I want right now what's coming to me.' "So the father divided the property between them. It wasn't long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had. After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt. He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any. "That brought him to his senses. He said, 'All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death. I'm going back to my father. I'll say to him, Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you; I don't deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.' He got right up and went home to his father. "When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: 'Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you; I don't deserve to be called your son ever again.' "But the father wasn't listening. He was calling to the servants, 'Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We're going to feast! We're going to have a wonderful time! My son is here--given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!' And they began to have a wonderful time." (Luke 15:11-24 MSG)

It is important to note that Jesus told the parable above (3) in response to the religious Pharisee’s complaining that He was spending time with "sinners". What the text aims to show is God’s proper attitude to those who come to Him. The father received the prodigal son with great joy and celebration, without any reference to His wrongdoings. He did not judge Him, but rather received Him. God is not sitting in judgment of us, His love is extended out to receive us. So we have nothing to fear . We can approach Him boldly because of what Christ has done.

1. "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him." (John 3:17 MKJV)

2. "Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come. All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends and gave us the task of making others his friends also. Our message is that God was making all human beings his friends through Christ. God did not keep an account of their sins, and he has given us the message, which tells how he makes them his friends. Here we are, then, speaking for Christ, as though God himself were making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ's behalf: let God change you from enemies into his friends! Christ was without sin, but for our sake God made him share our sin in order that in union with him we might share the righteousness of God." (2 Corinthians 5:17-21 GNB)

In the next installment we put together all the pieces of the love puzzle.

Every Blessing

(To be continued...)

Breadoflife

click here to read part 7

To view others instalments in the series, click here