Good morning,
This week we will look at love from God’s perspective.
Valentine’s day promotes the love between couples. It is relational and centered on the world’s system of love. Sometimes physical, sexual, and immoral. Gifts, flowers, candy, are all given to the one we love.
God’s love is different.
God is love. He demonstrates His love. He gives His love. He shows us examples of love. He explains that His love is opened to all. He defines love.
Join us this week as we explore the God of love.
1) God is Love
I John 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
Romans 5:8 But God commendeth (demonstrated) his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
HOW AND WHO GOD LOVES
Gen 1 In the beginning God
Gen 2 Made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
Gen 3 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
Gen 37-50 Joseph In all Joseph’s adversity, God loved him and cared for him
Exodus God loved his children Israel and provided a way of escape from the Egyptians
Judges 2,6 Rahab was a harlot but God loved her and saved her and her family
Ruth Ruth was a Moabite
2 Sam 11 David had a man killed
1 Kings 11 Solomon disobeyed God
Acts 9 Saul, persecutor of the church on the road to Emmaus
2) How do we respond to God’s love?
John 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.
I John 4:19 We love him, because he first loved us.
I John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.
Genesis 3 is the darkest chapter in God’s word. Adam and Eve, created by, and in the image of, God, chose to rebel against God. They disobeyed God’s one and only command. They were deceived by the devil. Sin enters into the world. All future wickedness comes from that one act of disobedience.
God could have destroyed them. He did not. A blood sacrifice was made for the young couple. Naked, God gave them clothes to wear, then cast them out of the Garden of Eden. All mankind are their descendants.
God’s love extends to all people willing to come to God with a broken and contrite heart. Understanding that God sent Jesus to pay the sin debt we owed, that we could not pay. Jesus went to the cross, was crucified, died, was buried, and on the third day was resurrected from the dead.
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
That is God’s love for His creation. Trust Christ today and begin to experience God’s love.
Tom Stearns, WASI Chaplain, 907 715-4001 chaplain@alaskaseniors.com
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