My Love for Them

God’s love for me is the transforming factor that allows me to love others . As I understand God’s love for me, I can begin to love others. Actually I am commanded to love others. “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”  1 John 3:16. I am to follow His example and lay down my life for others.

There’s a song in from “Veggie Tales: A Story of St. Nicholas” that says, “I can love because God loves me; I can give because God gave. Jesus’ love is why I’m smiling, why I’m giving every day.” It’s not my feelings or my niceness that allows me to love others. It’s being filled with God’s love for me. What I’m filled with is what others will feel when they are around me.

My family deserves this love. The ones I love most should feel the most love from me. How often we are guilty of treating everyone nicer than our family. May this not be true in my life! If my goal is to show love to my family my attitude will also be different as I act out that love. “My life for theirs”  is a phrase I use to remind myself of the goal.

My sleep to feed my baby.

My schedule for my husband’s.

My activities for training toddlers.

My time for their benefit.

But not just my family. Just as God loved those who were separated from Him- those who were living lives that despised all He valued- I am to love those who don't love me. I am to love those who are repulsive. I am to love those who are unlovable. The lost will see God’s love for them through our actions. Not our words. 1 John 3:17-18 says, “But whoso hath his world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.” 

What needs do you see around you that you can fill? Several months ago my husband and I were teaching Junior Church. The majority of our kids ride our bus and have questionable home lives. As my husband was teaching I looked around the room and saw an empty plate with crumbs on it. My eyes flew to the children and I wondered how many of them had breakfast that morning. I realized that I could fix them breakfast on Sundays.  So now, with my husband and pastor’s approval, I fix them muffins to eat before Opening Assembly. I can’t provide all of them with a happy home, or a mama and daddy that love each other, or a warm family dinner every day. But I can give them breakfast on Sundays with the “world’s good” that God has blessed us with. My hope is that they see God’s love for them through muffins.

Many people struggle at Christmas. Many people struggle every day. This Christmas season when we celebrate God’s love for us would be the perfect time to refocus on showing love for others. Who can you love today?

God's Love for Me

Valentine’s Day showcases what our world thinks about love. Flowers, chocolates, hearts, dinner dates.  These are all feelings. Nice, fuzzy feelings; there’s nothing wrong with them. But they aren’t sustainable. You can’t sustain a marriage on fuzzy feelings. You can’t build a parent/child relationship on fuzzy feelings. And Jesus didn’t save the world on fuzzy feelings.

It wasn’t enough for Him to watch from heaven and tell us that He loved us. We would have heard words we could not believe as we lived and died and went to hell. Words and feelings are not believable as love. Words fall on deaf ears until we see love in action.

1 John 3:16 states, “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”  “Perceive” means “to know; to understand; to observe.” The only reason we know God loves us is that He acted on it. He sent His Son to die for me. He laid down His life for mine.  1 John 4: 9-10 says, “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”  God sent and Jesus came.

Jesus’ coming to earth shows us His love.  It is only as I understand God’s love for me that I can begin to love others properly. Stop and think about what redemption meant to Jesus. No, really. Stop and think about it. That is love.  I’ve been studying God’s love for me over the past few months and it’s amazing.

The Bible says

Nothing can separate me from God’s love.  Rom. 8:38-39

God takes pleasure in me. Ps. 149:4, 147:11

God holds my hand. Is. 41:13

God delights in me. Ps. 18:19

God loves me with an everlasting love even when I sin. Jer. 31:3

God had a great love for me even when I was a sinner. Eph. 2:4

God’s love is beyond my knowledge. Eph. 3:17-19

That last passage in Ephesians states that I must know God’s love to be “filled with all the fullness of God.”  That’s what I want. I want God to fill me. I want God to be what splashes out on others as they interact (and bump into!) me. 

Christmas: The Beginning of a Love Story

My husband and I began dating when I was 16.  And by dating I mean talking at school. We lingered in the hallways discussing our ball teams and summer plans.  We discussed our homework before school started. We joked around with friends while rushing to get to our locker and back to class.  I don’t have many specific memories of our early “dating” because it was just part of normal. Love stories can have quiet but significant beginnings.

A manger in a barn was an everday occurrence. So were women giving birth.  The start of the greatest love story in the history of the world was quiet. Only some shepherds were told that God had come to earth.  It was also significant. What great love called Jesus to leave heaven where He was adored and glorified as the Son of God! That same great love captured the Father’s heart. He loved me so much that He sent His Beloved from His presence for thirty-three years. Jesus came to suffer. He came to know temptation, to be persecuted and made fun of, to cause grief to those who loved Him. He came knowing the purpose. He came to die.

Photo Courtesy of Dan/Freedigitalphotos.net

The climax of the story is the cross. It’s powerful and life-changing. People take notice of an innocent man dying to save the world, not from some other enemy but from themselves. He came to save us from our own sin. To stand in our place and take our punishment.  Often we can feel pity for someone suffering at the hands of another, but rarely do we have sympathy for those suffering by their own actions. We think it serves them right or that they must be stupid.  Jesus loved us so much that He would come to take the punishment we brought upon ourselves.

We see God's love through His actions. 1 John 3:16 says, "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." We can understand God's love because we see it lived out. It wasn't words or warm fuzzy feelings. It was actions that put our good above His.

This month we are celebrating the start of the ultimate love story. This love has transformed my heart and my life. May that love work through me to reach out to others.