Love Begins With God

THE DAILY DE-VO  by Pastor Steven

Love Begins With God

Good Morning, and it is a new month.  April fools day today!  The problem is this:  no one feels like pranking anyone.  Everyone is well aware of the  crazy unthinkable changes that our world has faced.   I will be offering a little Bible study and devotion time.  I will post this 5 days a week for as  long as I can.  I will type them for people to find and read, but I will also broadcast them on Facebook, and Youtube and Twitter. 

This is a crisis moment.   Many friends and family don’t know what do to with all this time on our hands.  I know of several who are holding Bible studies in their home and praying as a family.  These things are good, and I want to encourage you in them all the more.  

I’m going to being today a series on Love.  I want to look at 1 John chapter 4.   1 John is a great book.  Over the next few weeks we will see the love of God in definition and in illustration.   I want to remind you that you can go into the deep sea of God’s love and never - no never touch the bottom.  Its depth is deeper than we will ever know, and more full and rich than we can even begin to imagine.  

But, Love It is almost a lost gesture in our world today.   Everyone is running around  thinking only of themselves.   One of the things that really concerns me about his covid-19 crisis is that the human psyche needs human interaction.  Many of us humans and I am one of them have a love language of human touch.   The need for human touch and this social distancing stand in direct opposition to one another.  

Love maybe forgotten in these days, but it is needed more today than perhaps ever before.  So I want to remind us that love is still real, and love still exist, and love begins with God!   

I think when we understand rightly the love of God we will be touched by that love in new ways, and we will be moved by that love like never before.  Many people today are likely to  ask:  How can I know that God loves me?

By way of introduction let me give this to you:

• God’s love evident in his nature.  God is love 

• God's love is evident in the cross. 

If you want to know how much God loves you take a long look at the cross. Begin to understand that, and you will begin to understand God's love.

• God's love is evident in the body of Christ

So let’s read the text and then we will ponder this text for serval days to come:

READ:  1 John 4:7-11 

1 John 4:7-11 English Standard Version (ESV)

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 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. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

John gave to us a positive statement, the positive statement assumes the negative, but he did not give us anything for assumption.  He gave us the negative statement.   In this is love:  NOT!   That is a strong negative.  NOT that we love God but that he loved us, and sent his son!

How do I know that God loves everyone reading this devotional or watching this today? The Bible teaches that God sent Jesus because he loves you so much.    This takes me right back to the cross.  

Think with me about the Love of God!  When you dive into this vast subject, it is as though you swim and yet never reach shore. You dive deep but never touch the bottom.

One thing you do not have to worry about:  I will not exhaust this subject!  

Paul says of love, “bear all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails…and now abides faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” (1Corinthians 13:7, 8, 13).

What is agape love?   That is the Greek word.  It is selfless, sacrificial, and God’s love is an unconditional love. 

Agape, perfectly describes the kind of love Jesus Christ has for His Father and for his followers. 

Agape is love which if from and of God, whose very nature is love itself.   

Love originates with God.

1 John 4:8 says “God is love”

1 John 4:7 says “love is of (from) God”

Statement of Truth:

God does not merely love; He is love itself. 

Love does not define God, God defines love. 

The reason we are theologically unsound as a nation is because we believe love defines God!  But the Bible teaches us that it is God who defines love.

If you do not understand the difference, you could begin to say there is nothing wrong with this {action, attitude, or behavior} because God is love.

We are a people who desires for love to define God, but I  want to remind you this today:  God defines love.

If the Holy Spirit convicts you of sin it is motivated by the love of God!   If God did not love you, he would leave you just like you are!  

The fact that God loves you too much to leave you like you are, is real important -  He presses in and deals with you about things in your life. 

So let me end by just asking you what things are in your life?  What is it that God desires to deal with, confront, clean and cleanse.  What is that God God wants to place his finger on and say this right here needs to be dealt with.

All of us have had to slow down in some ways, we are forced from our normal routine, maybe God wants to examine our lives and maybe God wants to perform some kind of purification act in our life?  Why?  Because he loves us!  He has His good in mind for us!