Respond To God"s Love

Respond To God’s Love

RESPONDING TO GOD’S LOVE

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16

God is love. Most likely, we have heard these wonderful words from 1 John 4:8. But do we really understand what they mean?

John 3:16 sums it up: God loved vile, sinful, rebellious humanity so much that He came to earth in human flesh and died a gruesome death to save us. This is no shallow love.

Some people question Jesus’ sacrifice, though. They think, ‘Certainly the Lord could have come up with a different way to offer salvation. He is God, after all, so shouldn’t He be able to do all things? They fail to consider two of His unchangeable attributes.’

First, the Lord is holy by nature. This means that He cannot look upon sin with approval, so He must condemn transgression. Second, God is just. As a result, all wrongdoing—without exception—must be punished (Rom. 6:23). The Lord’s every action must be consistent with His nature.

We all fall short of God’s perfect holiness, and He is unable to fellowship with us in our fallen state (Rom. 3:23). But our heavenly Father desires an everlasting relationship with us. So He provided the solution by sending His Son Jesus to earth—to live as a man and die on the cross. This is the ultimate expression of love. As 1 John 4:10 states, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

The wise will accept the free gift of salvation. That is, they will receive Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior and commit to follow Him. What is your response to His amazing love?

Prayer: Thank You for Your amazing love.

Scriptural Reading: John 3:16-21

16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.

21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”

NKJV

 

Respond To God"s Love