The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell
It goes beyond the highest star
And reaches to the lowest hell
The guilty pair, bowed down with care
God gave His Son to win
His erring child He reconciled
And pardoned from his sin
Than tongue or pen can ever tell
It goes beyond the highest star
And reaches to the lowest hell
The guilty pair, bowed down with care
God gave His Son to win
His erring child He reconciled
And pardoned from his sin
Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies of parchment made
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade
And were the skies of parchment made
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky
Would drain the ocean dry
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky
God
loves us! In fact, God created us in love. He created us to love and to love
Him back. So, what is love? Unfortunately, we bandy around the word “love”
making it so common place that many people don’t have any idea of what love
really is. For, we say things like, “I love
chocolate”, “I just love that new
iced coffee drink,” or “I love the color on that car”. That type of expression
about love, though, is not really “love”. Love is more than an expression, and
it is more than a feeling. For, true love requires action and is shown by the
actions of love that we express toward others whom we profess to love.
Moreover, true love can grow stronger over the years as we continue to express loving
actions toward the other person whom we have professed to love. That is why,
long-time married couples often tell their spouse that they love them more
today than they did when they first got married. Indeed, love grows deeper and
greater the more that we express our love.
The
greatest love of all, though, is the love that is expressed by God to His
children. Just look around at the beautiful world that God created in His love for
us. But there are even more ways that God’s love has been expressed for us. However,
it is hard for humans to comprehend, let alone understand, the depth of God’s
love for us. Even with our glorious gift of Salvation, most of us cannot understand
the depth of love that God expressed to us in sacrificing His only Son so that
we would not have to spend eternity in hell upon our physical death here
on earth. Moreover, we often take for granted the love that God has for us even
when God expresses His love in His answers to our prayers, in blessing us and in
providing for us. But, for those that have not yet accepted God’s loving gift
of Salvation, there is no understanding at all of God’s love for them. However,
for those of us who have received the gift of Salvation, there is just the
beginnings of our understanding about God’s love. Unfortunately, we still just
can’t completely comprehend it.
The Apostle John wanted us to understand God’s
love, so he wrote about God’s love for us. John wrote specifically about God’s
love in the book of I John. It is
in I John 4: 7-19, where we discover
that God’s love is the source of all human love. We also learn that we
can focus on God’s love for us by showing God’s love to others through our
own actions. For, in verses 11-12, John wrote: “Dear
friends, since God loved us that much (sending his Son to die for our sins), we surely ought to love each. No one has ever seen God. But
if we love each other, God lives in us, and His love has been brought to
full expression through us. And God has given us His Spirit as proof that
we live in Him and He in us.” But it is in verses 16-17 where John tells us that “… God
is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as
we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So, we will not be afraid on
the day of judgment, but we can face Him with confidence because we are like
Christ here in this world.”
Still,
even with John’s explanation of God’s love it is hard for us to understand the
depth of God’s love for us; both the love He gave in creating us and the love
it took to send His only Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to save us. Notice
that both those things required God’s overt action in order to express His
love. However, we truly can’t comprehend the depth of God’s love for us until
we recognize what it took (the sacrificial love it took) for God to send His
only Son, Jesus Christ, to His horrible death on the cross even knowing that it
would be through Christ’s subsequent resurrection from the grave that we would no
longer have to face eternal death and destruction. Until we understand that it
is only through God’s love and through His loving sacrificial action of sending
His Son, Jesus Christ, to the cross and that it is only through Christ’s
resurrection that each of us can be saved, we will not completely comprehend
God’s love. Only when those of us who believe on Christ and those of us who are
truly born-again finally reach Heaven to spend eternity with God will we
finally comprehend the depth of God’s love for us.
The
Apostle Paul also tried to explain the greatness of God’s love for us in Ephesians 3: 17-19. Here Paul said, “And 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 long, know 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.” Paul is telling us that it is through our Salvation
that we can experience the love of Christ, yet that Christ’s love is so great
that we will never fully comprehend it.
Then
for those of us who have truly accepted Christ as our Savior, the Apostle Paul
gave us this assurance in Romans 8:
38-39: “And I am convinced that nothing can ever
separate us from His love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels can’t,
and the demons can’t. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even
the power of hell can’t keep God’s love away. Whether we are high above the sky
or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to
separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Wow! What an assurance even if we can’t comprehend God’s love for us.
From
the above verses we have learned at least four things. One that God is the
source of all love. Secondly, we have learned that God’s love was shown
through the sacrificial action of the giving of His Son to save us from eternal
damnation. Third, we have learned from within the Gospels that Jesus is
the perfect example of what it means to love others, for everything that
Christ did in His life and death was supreme
love in action. And, last but not least, we have learned that for those
who are Saved, nothing can separate us from the Love of God.
Relationships and God’s Love
Did
you know that just as God lovingly created humans that God also created the
concept of relationships? Well, He did. In fact, the Bible tells us in Genesis 1: 27 that we are all created
in the image of God. This doesn’t mean that we look exactly like God. For, an
image can be a reflection without being an exact picture of someone. Obviously,
humankind is not an exact picture of God, because we are all so very different
in so many ways. However, in creating us, God wanted us to have some of His
attributes, especially the attributes that He thought would not only help us in
life but that would also allow us to enjoy each other as well as certain
attributes that would allow us to communicate and respond to Him in love. So,
God gave humans the ability to love other people, just as God loves us. He also gave us the ability to develop
relationships with other people and to be able to use those relationships to
express our love, help, compassion, concern, and kindness toward others.
God,
understood our need for loving and kind relationships, because God, Himself, is
in a relationship with the other essences of the Trinity of God, i.e., the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who are all in a loving relationship with
each other. So, in creating humankind God knew that relationships would be an
important part of our being created in His image. Moreover, without the ability
to form relationships, humans could not have a relationship with the Trinity in
which we could express our love, our honor, and our praise for the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. Moreover, without the ability to form a relationship with
Christ our Savior, we could not be Saved and share the Gospel message with
others. Furthermore, without the ability to form relationships we would not be
able to express love to others or be able to receive love from another person.
So,
first and foremost, we were all created to be in a relationship with God and created
to able to be in relationships with other people. The relationship that we have
with God enables us to live in this fallen world, because we know that God and
His love will help and bless us even within all the trials and sorrows we may
have to face. Moreover, with our Salvation relationship with Christ, we have the
certain knowledge that we will someday spend a glorious eternity with the
Trinity of God. However, it is within all the other relationships, which we
form here on earth, that we are able to discover that God has given us people
to love and to love us back. These relationships give us people talk to, people
to lean upon, and people with whom we can intellectually bounce ideas around,
as well as giving us people who will come along side of us in times of despair.
Indeed, we often need another person to come along side of us to comfort and
encourage us at specific times in our lives, and to provide compassionate,
loving, and caring relationships for our needs. In fact, no person is an
island in and unto himself in this life here on earth. That is why relationships
are the key to maintaining a healthy, happy, and interesting life here on
earth. But how do we develop our relationships?
God Plants Relational Seeds of Love Between Humans
God
plants relational seeds between people to help people navigate this world, as
well as to give us opportunities to express love, kindness, compassion,
concern, and caring toward another person. But, God also plants these relational
seeds between people in order to produce fruit for the Kingdom of God. So, what
are these relational seeds that God plants? Well, God plants seeds of godly
love. Eventually, the planted seeds of love develop and grow into a
Christian’s understanding of what it means to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
At other times, God’s a single planted seed of love often matures into a loving
relationship between two people that has the love of God and His Son, Jesus
Christ, as the foundation of their life.
When
the seed of love is then planted in the soil of service to Christ, Christian
mentoring relationships or other evangelical relational services can start to
grow with brotherly love and with the love of Christ as the focus. But it takes
the right kind of watering, fertilizing, and nurturing for God’s seeds of love
to germinate and develop into a Christ-centered fruit bearing relationships
that are based upon the love of Christ. That is why the type of watering,
fertilizing, and nurturing that is needed includes, but is not limited to:
care, concern, patience, empathy, wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.
The Seeds of Love
Throughout
God’s Love Story, i.e., the Bible, we read over and over again how much
God loves us and how much God wants us to love Him and others. Here are just a
few examples of some verses in the Bible that speak about the importance of
having the seeds of love in our lives.
I
Corinthians 13: 3 from The Message says: “No matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m
bankrupt without love.”
2
John 1: 6 from the New Century Version of the Bible
says: “Love means living the way God commanded us
to live. As you have heard from the beginning, His command is this: Live a
life of love.”
In
Galatians 5: 14 of The Living
Bible Translation, the scripture reads: “The
whole law can be summed up in this one command: ‘Love others as you love
yourself.’”
I
Peter 2: 17 says: “Show
respect for everyone. Love your Christian brothers and sisters.”
In
John 13: 35 in The Living Bible
we read that Jesus said, “Your strong
love for each other will prove to the
world that you are my disciples.”
Then,
in I Corinthians 14: 1 the Apostle
Paul tells us to: “Let love be your greatest aim.”
Why
do you think that the Word of God speaks so much to us about the love that we
are to espouse for each other and for Christ? Well, it is because God wants us
to not only love Him, but to let our entire lives be focused on Christian godly
love toward others. To answer this question even better, turn to 1John 3: 16. Here the Apostle John
says, “Dear children, let us stop just saying
we love each other; let us really show it by our actions.”
In other words, real love can be seen in our selfless and sacrificial giving
actions. Even the sacrificial giving of our time to help mentor another through
Active Relational Christian Mentoring
can be an expression of real love. Remember, though, real love does not
expect anything in return. However, Jesus said, “… if
you give a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, you will
surely be rewarded.” -- (Matthew 10: 42. NLT). In other words,
God’s relational seeds of love when watered, fertilized, and nurtured, will
bring the action of love into focus and its growth will be rewarded. For
Jesus is telling us that God notices every kind and caring deed that we do.
Even the loving act of giving a cup of cold water to one of Christ’s followers
will be rewarded. If in godly love, we help another, it is as if we are showing
our love to God. Put another way, our treatment of others actually shows God
how much we love Him.
Finally,
in John 13: 34 (NLT), we learn that
Jesus expects us to love as He loves us. For, 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.” In other words, we are
to love others with the same type of sacrificial love that Jesus showed to us
by going to the cross. That doesn’t mean that we are expected to die for
another even though some people will do so. But, it means that Jesus was a
living example of God’s love for us, so we are now to be a living example of
Christ’s love to those we encounter. This means that instead of focusing on self,
we are to focus on what we can do to show our Christian love to others.
Christ-Centered Relationships and Seeds of Love
Our
Christ-centered relationships, which are based upon God’s seeds of love, should
eventually produce good fruit for the Kingdom of God, whether it is from a
Christian mentoring relationship (ARCM), a friendship, a spousal relationship,
a work-related relationship, or within the relationships that are made in the
missionary field for Christ. Just think! From God’s relational seeds of love
that we in turn plant in the soil of Christian service, to the sharing of our
knowledge of God and His Son and their love for us, great and wonderful things
can happen for the glory of Lord and for the other woman within a mentoring
relationship that we have established. For, when the mentor shares her talents
and resources (as needed), the mentor can develop a wonderful fruit-producing
Christ-centered relationship with the mentee that will empower the mentee to be
so much more for God, herself, her family, and her friends. Ultimately, the
mentoring process becomes a “… planting of
the Lord for the display of His splendor.” – (Isaiah 61:3. NIV).
That
particular verse is taken from the book of Isaiah. I will end this
posting with the first three verses of Isaiah
61 so that you can see how we are to use God’s seeds of love to help others.
First, this is a prophetic message given to Isaiah about the coming Messiah.
So, Jesus read these verses while He was in Nazareth in the synagogue there, to
indicate that this prophetic message regarding Christ the Messiah as the
Servant of God was that day fulfilled in Him. In fact, these three particular
verses give us a picture of the Spirit of God resting upon and anointing the
Servant of God, Jesus Christ, to accomplish specific tasks, which He did
accomplish. But, secondly, before Jesus went back to Heaven, He commissioned His
disciples to bring the Good News of Salvation to all nations. In other words,
the apostles and now those of us who are followers of Christ have been given
the responsibility of sharing the Good News, i.e., the Gospel message, to other
people. We can do this by showing God’s love to others through our loving
servant-oriented actions and words. The Apostles became God’s servants and ambassadors
for Christ and now we, too, are to become God’s servants and ambassadors who are
willing to share the love of God and the Good News of Christ’s loving gift of
Salvation with everyone who will listen. Following are the verses from Isaiah 61: 1-3 of the NIV.
“1.
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
Because the
Lord has anointed me
To preach
good news to the poor.
He has sent
me to bind up the brokenhearted,
2.
To proclaim freedom for the captives,
And release
from darkness for the prisoners,
To proclaim
the year of the Lord’s favor,
And the day
of vengeance of our God,
To comfort
all who mourn,
3.
And provide for those who grieve in Zion –
To bestow
on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
The oil of
gladness instead of mourning,
And a
garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
They will
be called oaks of righteousness,
A planting
of the Lord for the display of His splendor.”
Although
Christ, is the Servant that is being referred to in this prophecy, as
“born-again” Christian servants of Christ’s, I believe that we, too, have been
anointed, i.e., we have also been given the specific purpose of bringing the
Good News to the poor. We can do this by developing relationships and by watering and nurturing the seeds of love that God has planted for those relationships. In addition,
we have been given the specific purpose of reaching out to the captives with
the Good News, which could mean that we are to reach out to either actual captives
in prisons or to those who are captives within their own emotional prisons. In
either case, we can share the loving Gospel message with them.
In
these three verses, the prophet Isaiah spoke of God’s Servant, i.e., Jesus
Christ, as setting the prisoners free. The freedom that Christ proclaimed to
the prisoners could mean that they were literally released from bondage like
when Peter was released from prison supernaturally as recorded in Acts 12: 1-19,
but it could also mean that the Christ brought the prisoners from the darkness
of sin and oppression to the light of Salvation and happiness. Obviously, we
cannot literally set prisoners free. However, we can visit the prisons and
share the Good News by mentoring those that need to hear the Good News of
Christ. As “born-again” servants of Christ, we can share the light of Christ
with those who are in bondage, thus expressing God’s love to them and letting
them know that God wants them to be free from sin.
In
verse 2, “the Year of the Lord’s favor”
refers to the Day of Jubilee, which was to come every 50 years and was to be
the clearing away of all debts and the healing for the land. Although the Day
of Jubilee is no longer celebrated as such, God expects His commandments to be
followed, including the celebration of the Day of Jubilee. That is why there
was reference to “the Year of the Lord’s
favor” in this prophecy. But, never forget that God keeps track of the
years even if we do not. Moreover, there will be a Day of Jubilee in the
future.
Within
the second verse, “the Day of vengeance
of our God” refers to God’s future judgment, which we can read about within
the book of Revelation. Certainly, we can be assured that Christ explained
both the Day of Jubilee and the Day of vengeance to His disciples while He was
here on earth, although many, except the eleven closest to Him at that time,
did not listen to Him. But, the apostles who believed on Christ understood that
they were to continue sharing the Truth of God’s coming vengeance or judgment
with everyone who would listen. And now as Christ’s followers we are to also
continue to share the Word of God and God’s Truth, including the day of
judgment, with those within our sphere of influence or with those with whom we
have the ability to develop a godly relationship. In fact, everyone needs to
know that Christ will come back to judge the people of this earth who have not
accepted Christ as their Savior. For, there will indeed be a judgment day! That
is why we must share the Good News with everyone we can.
In
verse three, we discover that Christ while here on earth came to comfort those who grieved. So, just
like Christ comforted those who grieved and mourned, we, too, are to comfort
those who mourn. We are to show compassion, godly love, and understanding to
those who have lost a loved one. Obviously, Christ did and will also again
transform their mourning into joy, by giving them “a crown of beauty instead of ashes” just as He did for those who
were mourning for Lazarus. In such a situation, those who mourned would have
been given a festive oil and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of
despair. Obviously, we cannot do that, but we can be there for those who are
suffering and mourning. We can hold their hands and comfort them. And, for
those whose loved ones have indeed gone on to be with God because of their wonderful
Salvation, we can rejoice with their loved ones!
All
the services that we perform for God through the seeds of godly love and our
willingness to share with others the Good News, our talents, our gifts, and our
abilities to help others will lead to God’s seeds of love growing into
wonderful glorious plants, i.e., relationships that give God all the glory and honor which He so
richly deserves. The relational seeds of love that God has planted between His
children will then become a “planting of the Lord, for the display of His
splendor.”
Active
Relational Christian Mentoring as explained in my book,
The Three-Strand Cord of Active
Relational Christian Mentoring, is a great way to grow and nurture the
relational seeds of love that God wants us to fertilize and nurture for Him.
You can do it! You can reach out to another woman and be there for her. You can
share your knowledge, talents, and gifts easily by giving just a few minutes of
your time a week. Just think! You could empower another woman to be all that
she can be for God, herself, her family and her friends. You can do it. And if
you want to know how easy it is to become a Christian mentor who can empower
another woman, read my book which can be purchased at Amazon, Barnes and Nobel,
iTunes, Google Play, and at Christian Book Publishing Company.
