O, the love of God.

It’s no surprise that our minds automatically go into assessing our earthly situations whenever we say that God loves us. And the natural man is saying, “that’s a lie.”

“If God had loved me, then I would have been as smart as …”
“If God had loved me, then I would have been as rich as…”
“If God had loved me, then I would have been as healthy as …”
“If God had loved me, then I would have been as happy as…”
“If God had loved me, then I would have felt at peace as…”

But the recorded manner of love that God has for us says that: “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

We pride ourselves often of the love we have for God. Yet, what we’re called to celebrate is the love God has for us.

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:10)

As we’re trying to judge each other according to our sins, God has given us his love to judge each other by. His love, Christ Jesus.

The love of God sees our needs rather than our guilts. This is why Jesus had said to the woman who was to be stoned, “neither do I condemn you.”

And again,

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17)

If we can see how weak we are rather than how guilty we are, then we may love one another as God has loved us.

We don’t celebrate our weaknesses and neither are to be ashamed of them. What we ought to celebrate is the strength that brought God to give Christ Jesus to die for us as he fulfilled the requirement of the law of sin and death which says that the wages of sin is death. Such strength is the love of God for us.

Paul had it this way,

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:8-10)

and again,

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” (Romans 5:6)

While we were still without the Spirit of God, without hope in God, without prior knowledge of God, Christ died for us. That’s the love of God. That’s the good news. There’s not a level so low that Christ cannot and will not pluck us out of to sustain us and cause us to grow by the living hope we have in God through him.

To sum up, in the words of Paul by grace,

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)