God's Love
As
we enter the new year people usually set New Year Resolutions hoping to better
their life. But among all the resolutions that people make, we seldom hear of
someone resolving to search for the truth about God and His love. Yet, this is
probably the most important resolution that anyone can make. Why is the search
for the truth about God and His Love so important? Well, people are always
searching for love, but they are not searching for the source of all love, nor
are they searching for the truth about God, who is the source Love and Eternal
life.
The
Apostle John wrote: “Dear friends, let
us continue to love one another, for loves comes from God. Anyone who
loves is born of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not
know God – for God is love. God showed how much He loved us by sending
His only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him.
This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that He loved us and
sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” --
(I John 4: 7-10. NLT).
People
have always searched for love. From the moment that we are born most humans are
wrapped within the arms of their mother or father and other family members who hold
them closely to express their love for them. Very early on, then, new born
babies quickly recognize the love that emanates from those who care for them
and from those who hold them close. In fact, babies usually quieten down easily
when they are picked up and snuggled by a parent, because they recognize and
feel that they are wrapped in the arms of love.
Later, as a child grows, he/she
continues to look for love and love’s acceptance as being a valuable person. This
love and acceptance is felt and seen through the loving arms and kind words of
parents and family members. Unfortunately, those children who are born into
love starved family situations do not feel love or hear kind words, so they will
eventually seek love and acceptance in all the wrong places. In fact, they
often cannot recognize true love and true love’s acceptance, because they never
had love and acceptance in their formative years. That is why these individuals
can be easily duped into believing that someone actually loves them when they
don’t. They are love starved and are desperate to be loved!
(I have again broken a rather
long post into sections that are designated in purple. That will allow you to stop
at any point along the way and be able to pick up again at a later time. Don’t feel
that you have to read the entire post at one time. However, I do think that the
content is worth the read over a period of time. I hope you enjoy this post. Happy
2018.)
Satan’s Lies
There
are many different ways that the devil dupes love starved people into believing
that they have found real love and real love’s acceptance. One of those ways is
through the use of gangs. Today we have gangs across the world, including the
gang of ISIS, that entice young people into belonging to a “family” gang that
will accept them and need them. They join a gang because they feel lonely and
unloved. Supposedly they can become part of this gang, organization, or so-called
“family” and then they will be cared for and become an accepted and beloved family member.
Sadly,
many young people join a gang because they have not felt loved, or because they
did not have a family environment in which they felt that they belonged. So,
when even some unknown person or situation gives them an opportunity to feel
loved or to feel that they belong, they suddenly give their allegiance to them
in return for the willingness of the gang members to accept them and give them
brotherly love back.
These
gangs, organizations, and even cults can become a death trap. But, Satan
doesn’t care. In fact, Satan entices people into these gangs because he wants
humans to ultimately feel unloved or be destroyed. Why does Satan want us to feel unloved? Well, this is
all part of Satan’s larger plan to separate humans from the love of God. He
uses the hurtfulness of this fallen and deceitful world and individuals' personal need
for love to steer certain lonely and unloved individuals into gangs and into other
evil situations that can entice them into believing that they are really being
loved and accepted for who they are, even though they are actually being abused
and deprived of real love. For Satan believes that if humans feel unloved they will
be less likely to turn to God for love, and he certainly does not want people to
turn to God for anything and especially not for love. So, when parents fail to
express love to their child, faith in God, or tell their child about God’s love there
is a great chance that the child will grow up searching for love in all the
wrong places.
But
it isn’t just gangs that Satan uses to separate humans from God’s love. Satan
uses all the evil devices of this world to bully and deceive humans about the
truth of God’s love. So, whether it is Satan’s deception regarding immoral prostitution,
gangs, or even cliques established within schools, businesses, and the social
arena, he can continually find ways to deceive humans about love. Even joining
or being swept up into a political ideology that projects hatred toward others
for their different beliefs takes many people deep into the realm of hatred
which is the opposite of love. Most importantly, Satan uses different meanings
for the word “love” than the one that God first established. As a result,
humans seeking love are often led into the immorality and deceitfulness of a supposedly loving relationship.
The
deceitfulness of love can be found within the abuse that can occur for someone within some dating
relationships. This same type of abusive deceitful love can be found in some marriage
relationships, which is just another way that the devil can separate humans
from the real love that God wants for them. Eventually, those victims that stay
in a loveless and abusive relationship will have been brainwashed into
believing that they are not worthy of love or that the other person really
loves them in some strange way. Indeed, Satan often helps the unloved victim to
justify the other person’s lack of love by convincing the victim that the other
person just does not know how to show love, but he/she really loves the victim. In other words, the emotional or
physical abuse of a spouse is just that person’s way of trying to show love,
which of course is a lie. To make matters worse, many of these abused
individuals can’t seem to get out of the abusive relationship, because they have
come to believe the lie that the other person really loves them. Why? Well, they
cannot recognize real love because they somehow missed out on the early
expression of true love from parents and family members when they were a baby or
child. Satan certainly jumps for glee when he sees so many humans deceived about
love and sees them searching in all the wrong places for real love. Indeed, Satan
perpetuates his lies in order to get humans to sin and dabble in all kinds of his
evil ways and sinfulness.
There
is no love in Satan. Instead, Satan is prideful, selfish, and filled with
hatred toward God and God’s created humans. Moreover, Satan certainly does not
want humans to experience the love of God. For when we experience the love of God and accept the greatest gift of His love, Jesus Christ,
we will be forever changed. Indeed, every human who accepts the free gift of
Christ’s love, is re-born into a new creature who will never allow Satan to again
control their lives. So, Satan works hard and does everything he can to derail
or change a human’s belief system about love so that the human cannot recognize
God’s love and cannot accept Christ’s sacrificial love. The truth is that every individual who does not recognize and accept the truth about God's love and His Son, Jesus Christ, will be forever separated from love. For, those in hell will never again experience any kind of love.
Many
people can’t recognize God’s love. In fact, many others cannot even begin to understand
the concept of love here on earth between humans, because Satan has twisted and
distorted the concept of love in so many different ways. Yet, the Apostle Paul gave
Christ’s followers the true meaning of human love, and he told them how this real
love can be expressed between one another and reflect the type of love that God
and Christ want for them. Paul said:
“Love is
Patient and kind.
Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.
Love does not demand its own way.
Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has
been wronged.
It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth
wins out.
Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful and
endures through every circumstance.
Love will last forever. …
There are three things that will endure – faith, hope, and love
-- and the greatest of these is love.”
(I
Corinthians 13: 4-8, 13. NLT).
If
you can recognize the truth about love and accept the greatest love of all
which is given to us by God through His gift of Jesus Christ, you will be able
to lead a life that is lived daily in love. But can you recognize God’s love?
Again, the Apostle Paul has given us a glimpse into the greatness of
God’s love when through the Holy Spirit Paul wrote the following Scriptures in
a letter to the Ephesians. Paul wrote:
“I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your
hearts as you trust in Him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of
God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s
people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love really is.
May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will
never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of
life and power that comes from God.” --
(Ephesians 3: 17-19. NLT).
The Truth About God’s Love
“In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth.” --
(Genesis 1:1. NLT).
That
verse is really about God’s love. In fact, the Truth about God’s love was
recorded long ago within the Bible. For, the Bible is God’s recorded Love Story
with the people He created. You see, God
is Love! Moreover, God wanted to express His love in an even greater way
than He expressed His Love through the persons of the Trinity of God. But, how
did God decide to express His love? Well, long long ago God’s love began to be
expressed when He created the angels. Later, God chose to express more of His
love through the creation of this universe, the solar system and the earth.
For, God planned to create beings to live on earth who would be able to not
only love each other but love Him too.
To
begin to understand the depth of God’s love, we first have to understand that
God did not have to create this universe or this earth. Rather, in His
greatness and power God could have created anything. But God chose to express
His love by creating humans who could love. God is love, so God chose to pour
out His love on His creation. These beings and their habitat would be special
with the potential to communicate with God and to love God in return. For God knew
that if love is to grow, it must be expressed, enjoyed, and reciprocated. In
other words, love must be first given away if one is to receive love back. So,
that is exactly what God did. God gave His love to the beings He created, but
first God expressed His heart of love through the creation of this world on
which these loved beings would live and thrive. In other words, God expressed
His love for us by first giving us a place to live, by then creating us, and then
by giving us a way to communicate and spiritually express our love back toward
God.
We
could express our love of God through the fellowship we could have with God and
through the relationship that God could have with us. Furthermore, God’s love
could be and was expressed through the development of a loving relationship
with His Creation. Indeed, humans are loved by God, and we are each very
valuable in the eyes of God.
God’s
love was unconditional. That is, God offered His unconditional love to each human,
but unfortunately, starting with Adam and Eve and those people that followed, many
people rejected and still reject God’s love. Why did they reject God’s love?
Well, Satan told them a lie. A lie that Adam and Eve believed. So, when Adam
and Eve disobeyed God and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
God had to kick them out of their perfect loving home, because they had sinned.
Why Do Humans Reject the Truth?
Today,
there are now many more reasons why humans reject the truth of God’s love. First of all, people
are afraid. They innately know that they are sinners and that God is a Holy God
Who cannot look upon sin, so humans are afraid to come before the loving Holy God.
Even Adam and Eve hid themselves from God in fear when they realized that they
had sinned, even though they had previously felt the love of God on a daily
basis as they walked with God in the Garden of Eden (See Genesis 3:8). Although
God wanted fellowship with them, Adam and Eve fell for Satan’s deception and
lost that daily fellowship and the perfect loving relationship with God. But
God was willing to give humans a way to repent of their innate sins by
believing on His Son, Jesus Christ. So, even after the fall from the Garden of
Eden, Adam and Eve were told that God would someday send a deliverer. That is
just what God did when He sent His Only Son to earth to take people’s sins upon
His shoulders. So, today no one has an excuse for hiding from God. But, many
people still hide from Him. They continue to believe the lies that the devil tells about
God and His love through the intellectually elite and those that have no idea of who God really is. Many people believe the lies that come from these intellectually brilliant
men and women who have been deceived by Satan.
Still
God wants all to come to the saving grace of His and Christ’s love. But, God
knows there will still be many who refuse to accept His offered love. Eventually,
God’s Holy Spirit, will quit calling an individual to come to Christ. Then that
person’s rejection of God’s ultimate gift of love, His Son Jesus Christ, will
lead them into the death trap that Satan set for them which is eternal hell. I
don’t know about you, but I have accepted God’s gift of eternal life by
accepting the sacrificial love that God offered through His Son, Jesus Christ.
If you can read this, you still have a chance to accept God’s loving gift
before you take your last breath. But, once you take your last breath, it is
too late. For, you have chosen to believe the lies of Satan and reject God’s
gift of love.
So,
why is it that some people are unwilling to accept the love that God has
offered to us for eternal life? Well, first many people refuse to read God’s
love story, i.e., the Bible, to see and understand how much God truly loves them.
Other people refuse to see the difference made in the lives of those who have
accepted God’s love. Instead they accept the nonsense of the intellectual elites
who believe they know more about love and knowledge than God does. But if
people would just pick up the Bible and read it, they would begin to see that
God cares more for them than do the intellectual elites, the snobs, the
philosophical perverters of the truth, and the political correctness police.
Another
reason that people reject the love of God and the gift of Salvation is that
Satan continues to lie to them about God. First, Satan tells people, especially
those who believe they are intellectually brilliant, that there is no God.
Then, Satan tells them that if God exists, that God does not care about them,
but rather lives up in the Heavens somewhere just watching His creation kill
each other. Finally, Satan tells people that no loving God would let hungry
little children die, therefore God either doesn’t exist or He is some sadistic
God who doesn’t love them. These are all lies! For, Satan is the one who
brought us into this fallen world with diseases, hate, and trauma when he lied
and tricked Adam and Eve into taking a bite of the fruit from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, thus causing them to sin. Consequently, Adam and
Eve were kicked out of the perfect loving garden, i.e., paradise. Now we live in a fallen world.
Today,
many people who believe they are intellectually brilliant refuse to believe in
God or Satan. They have convinced themselves that do not believe in God. But
they also do not believe in Satan. Consequently, they do not realize that Satan
exists or that he is their enemy. Satan is evil and will do anything he can to
get humans to follow his deadly path which leads into eternal damnation within
hell. That is why Satan promotes humans finding love in all the wrong places.
He doesn’t want humans to find the love of God. Nor, does Satan want humans to
discover the gift of sacrificial love that God gave to anyone who will believe
on His Son, Jesus Christ, and to anyone who will accept the gift of Salvation offered
through repentance from their sins.
Even Within This Fallen World, God’s Expression of
Love for the Israelites and For All of Us can be Found Within the Bible
I
don’t have time or space here to write about all the times that God expressed
His love to the Jewish people throughout God’s recorded love story within both the
Older and Newer Testaments. But, I would like to list a few of the highlights
of God’s love over the years. We know through the Scriptures that God created
Adam and Eve out of love. However, God also disciplined Adam and Eve out of His
love for them. Later we are told that God saved Noah and His family because of
His love for them even though the rest of the people of the world had allowed
themselves to be seduced by the evil that Satan was promoting and perpetrating
with His lies and evil ways. All accept Noah and his family died in the flood.
The Lord allowed the earth to be gradually repopulated by Noah’s family. However, even though new generations of people
on the earth understood what had happened with the flood and were told why the
flood occurred, most were eventually seduced by the evil that Satan promoted
and the lies that he told about the importance of their man-made gods. People again did
not believe in a loving God or the existence of only one God. Then, when one
man named Abraham finally believed in God’s existence and truly loved Him, God
reached out in love to provide for this man, Abraham, and helped to guide
him safely through the deceitful traps that Satan would set for Abraham.
Indeed, Abraham was protected many different times over by God’s promises and His
love. As Abraham’s family increased and eventually became millions of people
strong, we also read within the biblical Scriptures that God loved the
Israelite people, who were the descendants of Abraham, so much that when they were
oppressed and cried out to God to be saved from the Pharaoh’s harsh treatment,
that God heard their cries and saved them.
Unfortunately,
Satan continued to ply his evil schemes and ways upon the whole human race, but focused upon the Israelite people to bring them down because they
were especially loved by God. Therefore, the Israelite people were continually deceived
by Satan and enticed by the ungodly ways of the world that Satan put before
them. They would sin, but then when they realized they had done wrong, they
would again repent and ask for God’s forgiveness. Because of God’s love for
them, every time that the Israelite people repented for their wrong doing, God would
accept their apology and help them. That does not mean that God did not
discipline them or punish them just as a good father disciplines or punishes a
child who has misbehaved. Rather, God loved them so much that He did not want
them to continue down the wrong paths that would give Satan even more
opportunities to deceive them even further. So, God would discipline the
Israelites, helping them to see where they had gone wrong and how much He truly
loved them. At other times, God came right out and told the Israelites just how
much He loved them even though He knew they would again falter and would again need
discipline. That is exactly what God did when He sent a message to them through
the prophet Malachi.
“This is the message that the LORD gave to Israel through
the prophet Malachi. ‘I have loved you deeply,’ says the LORD. But you
retort, ‘Really? How have you loved us?’ And the LORD replies, ‘I showed my
love for you by loving your ancestor Jacob. Yet Esau was Jacob’s brother,
and I rejected Esau and devastated his hill country.” --
(Malachi 1-3. NLT).
What
was God telling the Israelites in His message to Malachi? Well, although this
message of love applied specifically to the Israelite people, it is really a
message of God’s love for all people in all times. Indeed, just because people often
become cynical about God’s love, especially in times of economic hardship such
as the devastation of Esau’s hill country or even during times of political or
economic stress, does not mean that God did not love them or that He does not
love us today. For, God loves us because He created us. In fact, the reward God
gives to those who love Him and His Son is the reward of eternal life, which is
dependent upon each individual’s recognition of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
as their Savior. Do you love God? Do you love Jesus Christ as your Savior? Have
you repented of your sins and asked Christ into your heart? If not, now is the
time to make this life and death decision for Christ.
I
love reading the book of John in the Newer Testament. And, I also love reading
the other three books that the Apostle John wrote, especially the book of I
John. One of the reasons that I love reading I John is because John
so succinctly explains to us that God is
Love. In chapter three, John wrote:
“See how very much our heavenly Father loves us, for He
allows us to be called His children, and we really are! But the people who belong to this world don’t know God,
so they don’t understand that we are His children. Yes, dear friends, we are
already God’s children, and we can’t even imagine what we will be like when
Christ returns. But we do know that when He comes we will be like Him, for we
will see Him as He really is.” –
(I John 3: 1, 2. NLT).
John
continues to explain in I John about God’s love and our responsibility
to love Him and other people. John says:
“If we love our Christian brothers and sisters, it proves
that we have passed from death to eternal life. But a person who has no love
is still dead. Anyone who hates another Christian is really a murderer
at heart. And you know that murderers don’t have eternal life within them.
We know what real love is because Christ gave up His life for us. And so, we
also ought to give up our lives for our Christian brothers and sisters.” --
(I John 3: 14-16. NLT).
God Sent His Only Son
to Show His Love and Mercy
God
sent His only Son to earth as God incarnate in a human baby. This baby grew up
into a man who walked the earth telling people about the love of God. Christ
shared with people what God expected of them. But everywhere Christ went, the
Pharisees and Sadducees tried to catch Jesus in some blasphemy or in the
breaking of one of the Jewish laws so they could arrest Him and get rid of Him.
One day the Jewish leaders were harassing Jesus in the Temple. They asked Him
under whose authority could He heal people on the Sabbath. Jesus said, “I assure you the Son can do nothing by Himself. He does
only what He sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also
does. … I assure you that those who listen to My message and believe in God Who
sent Me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but
they have already passed from death into life.” --
(John 5: 19, 24. NLT).
We
know that the Sadducees and Pharisees did not believe Jesus and eventually found a way to trap Jesus
through the disciple Judas who was ultimately indwelt by Satan. They not only
captured Jesus but they sent him to the cross on Calvary to die a humiliating
and painful death. But the grave could not hold the Son of God! Indeed, Christ
arose on the third day with over 500 people seeing Him alive again. Later,
after Christ had gone back to Heaven, the Apostle Paul wrote to the new Christians
in the Roman Church about the love that it took for God to send His only Son to
His death for us. Paul wrote:
“For we know how dearly God loves us, because He
has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with Love. When we were
utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.
Now, no one is likely to die for a good person, though someone might be willing
to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed His great love
for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And
since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, He will
certainly save us from God’s judgment.
For since we were restored to friendship with God by the death
of His Son while we were still His enemies, we will certainly be delivered from
eternal punishment by His life. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new
relationship with God – all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for
us in making us friends of God.” --
(Romans 5: 5-10. NLT).
This
same love that God expressed in sending Christ to die for our sins, and the
same love that Christ expressed in dying for our sins, was again expressed in
His sending of the Holy Spirit to live within us, i.e., within Saved
Christians, to guide us in loving others every day. In fact, it is through the
Holy Spirit that Christ has given every true Christian the power and the love
that is needed in witnessing for Christ and in loving others. Indeed,
Christians can pray for strength, power, and love as we need it to care for and
be there for others who need our help.
Paul
also addresses the responsibilities and debts of Christians in his letter to
the Roman church. Paul wrote:
“Pay all your debts except the debt of love for others.
You can never finish paying that. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill
all requirements of God’s law. … Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no
wrong to anyone, so love satisfies all of God’s requirements.” -- (Romans 13: 8-10. NLT).
It
seems strange that the Apostle Paul would call the love of others a debt. Well,
the reason he does so is because we are all indebted to the love of Christ that
He lavishly poured out on us when He died for our sins on the cross. But, loving
others like Christ loved us is the only the beginning of showing our
appreciation to Christ because it is the only way that we can even begin to
repay our debt to Christ. Even so, we will always be obligated or have a
responsibility to love others because of the love that Christ expressed on the
cross, which will always be greater than any expression of our love. In other
words, we need to continually express our love for our neighbors and for Christ
by engaging in service to our Lord and by helping those that need our help.
Jesus
Christ is the living Son of God. Eternity or Eternal life, which is living with
God and His love forever, begins when a person accepts Christ as their Savior
and culminates when that Saved person physically dies here on earth. For, upon
our physical death, those who have believed in Christ as their Savior will go
to live eternally with God and Christ. The Bible tells us that God is the
source of all life and that it is through God’s love that we exist. So, it is
also through God’s love that we will exist throughout eternity with Him. In
fact, God loves us so much that He gave His only begotten Son so that whosoever
should believe on Him could have eternal life.
Once
we choose to believe on Christ and accept the love of God given to us through
His Son, we begin a new life. We are re-born into a new person who lives to
express God’s love within our lives here on earth. We are members of the
Kingdom of God and as such we are to tell others about the Gospel message,
i.e., the message of Jesus Christ who offers Salvation to anyone who believes
on Him as the living Son of God. As re-born humans we are share God’s message
of love with everyone we encounter in some way or another.
Expressing Christ’s
Love to Others
Jesus
said, “So now I am giving you a new commandment:
Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your
love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” --
(John 13: 34. NLT). Those who have accepted Christ as
their Savior have also become disciples of Christ. As disciples we are to show
the same type of love to others that Christ showed to people while He was here
on earth. This was a revolutionary statement because Christ is love! Jesus’
love was a sacrificial love that we are to emulate through our service to others. This type of love and service to Christ will
bring others to the spiritual knowledge of Christ, while keeping believers
united together in their focus on God. For the world in general is hostile to
God, and Satan continues to encourage disbelief in God and Christ. That is why
we need to understand what true Christ-like love is all about. Then, as
disciples or believers in Jesus Christ as the living Son of God and
representative of God’s love, we can be living examples of Christ’s love.
The Action and
Attitude of Love
Love
is a verb or an action word. Moreover, love is more than just a warm feeling or
a euphoric feeling when we are around someone we love. Love is an attitude. This love attitude is then revealed to
others within our actions toward them and others. Love is revealed within our
actions of helping another or in our sharing of our talents and gifts with another person even when it is not
convenient for us to do so. Love is revealed when we give to another
sacrificially when it hurts. Love is revealed when we devote our time and
energy in giving or helping in another’s welfare instead of thinking only of
our own welfare. Love is not allowing Satan to push us to the point that we
become angry about some hurt. Instead, we don’t push back in anger, but rather
absorb the hurts and forgive the other person. Although this type of love is
hard to do, the expression of this type of love is noticed by others which
opens the door for witnessing about Jesus Christ and His sacrificial love.
We
all believe that love is important. But, love is more than just a feeling that
effects our emotions toward another human, or more than a euphoric and
eventually empty feeling that causes many to engage in immoral behavior. That
type of love is not love at all. Instead, love is a choice and requires not
only a loving attitude but a loving action. True love comes from God who is the
source of all love. But to express true love we have to make a choice that
culminates in an action that projects our love on others. Remember, that Christ
did everything in life and in death with both an attitude of love and with
actions of love.
To
understand love, we have to look to God who is the source of love. So far, we
have discovered that God created us in love. In other words, because God is
love, He created people to love. Then, God chose to love humans even though we
are sinful people and often fail to love Him back. However, God’s love for humans gave each of us the right to
be free to choose whom we love. For even though God wants a loving response from
us, He will not force us to love Him. Therefore, God’s love was expressed in
action. God’s great love for us caused God to offer a solution or chance for
humans to overcome the problem of sin that keeps us away from God. What was
that solution or loving action? Well, God’s solution for our sinfulness was
expressed in His loving actions of offering His grace and mercy. In other
words, God has given every person the chance to repent of their sins. For, God
sent His Only Son into the world to die for our sins and then to arise from the
grave conquering eternal death. So, by believing on Christ as the living Son of
God and by repenting of our sins we can have eternal life or a loving relationship with God forever. But this is a choice
that each person has to make. Then, if that person decides to accept this free
gift of God’s love and mercy, he/she can receive eternal life, which is the
ultimate expression of God’s love for us individually.
Once
a person has accepted the love of God and the sacrificial love of Christ, that
person has been reborn into a new person who recognizes the love that God has
bestowed upon them. This new person in Christ also has a responsibility to
repay this debt of love that they owe to Christ by loving others as Christ
loved them. That is why all reborn Christians have a responsibility to reach
out in love to others to share the Gospel message. Indeed, all reborn
Christians need to reach out in love to help those less fortunate or to help
those in need. Are you willing to step forward in this new year of 2018 and love
others as you love yourself? Are you willing to lovingly care about those
around you?
How Can Christians Express
their Christ-like Love?
There are so
many ways that true Christians can express their Christ-like love to others. For
example, love can be expressed in personal service to the church family. Love
can be expressed in charity work. Love can be expressed in good deeds for
others. Moreover, Christ’s love can be expressed in services performed for the
glory of the Kingdom of God. One of those services is the service of Active Relational Christian Mentoring
(ARCM). If you haven’t listened to and mentored another person in need,
ARCM is a very rewarding service that benefits both the mentor and mentee. Just
about anyone can help another through the giving of their time to mentor. If
you have a loving heart that cares about the needs of others then you would
make a good Christian mentor. If you are interested in finding out more about
ARCM, pick up the book: The Three-Strand Cord of Active Relational Christian
Mentoring by Vicky Lynn Thomas, which can be purchased through
Amazon, Barnes and Nobel, Christian Faith Publishing, iTunes, and Google
Play. The following is the link to
Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Three-Strand-Active-Relational-Christian-Mentoring/dp/1635753007/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511818396&sr=8-1&keywords=The+three+strand+cord+of+active+relational+christian+mentoring
Happy New Year and don't forget to resolve to find out the truth about God and His Love!
