I always think things happen for reasons, and in the calm of this evening, I can look back and say that I'm sure there was a really good reason that my computer spazzed out on me and dissolved an hour's worth of writing last night as I just finished the post for the day. At 12:10 a.m. this morning when it happened, I wasn't quite that calm. So lest anyone think that just because I journal about Scripture memorization every evening that I am above totally losing my cool, I SO proved you wrong early this morning! Isn't that just like God...allowing me to write about our unworthiness of God's love and letting me prove it at the very same time! I think God was not so subtly reminding me of how my need for His mercy never stops!
The essence of my post last night (I'm not going to try to totally recreate it) was based on a quote from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible regarding our verse's intent...."to show that the love of God... did not arise from any loveliness in them; or from any love in them to him; nor from any works of righteousness done by them, but from his own sovereign will and pleasure." (If you're wondering why he is speaking so stiff and formal, John Gill was an English theologian in the early 1700s.)
What John Gill was impressing upon those who studied his writings then and for us who are able (via wonderful tools such as http://www.biblestudytools.com/ !) to read his writings today, is that there is nothing about us that would cause God to love us...we aren't just so amazingly wonderful or beautiful or intelligent that He is just enamored by us. There is nothing that we've done that brings God's love to us...we haven't created anything that He is standing in awe of. It is not because we have loved Him so much that He feels compelled to love us back (we really aren't the equivalent of God's puppy dogs, even though I sometimes look at my cocker spaniel,Tux, and think he understands me at about the same level I understand God!).
No - the ONLY reason that we are loved by God is that God loves us..."by His own sovereign will and pleasure." There is nothing about us that initiates the love relationship between God and us...it is ALL Him loving us first. 1 John 4:19 tell us, "We love him, because he first loved us."
I'm asking for God's blessing on this message...that it is His message for us tonight and that it reaches the eyes that need to see it. For my constant prayer is that all the words that come out of this journaling are true to Him and to His Word. And my prayer is that anyone who is reading this either already knows Jesus as their Savior, or will start to really consider that the gift of God's love that we keep talking about, could be a reality in your life too.
The essence of my post last night (I'm not going to try to totally recreate it) was based on a quote from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible regarding our verse's intent...."to show that the love of God... did not arise from any loveliness in them; or from any love in them to him; nor from any works of righteousness done by them, but from his own sovereign will and pleasure." (If you're wondering why he is speaking so stiff and formal, John Gill was an English theologian in the early 1700s.)
What John Gill was impressing upon those who studied his writings then and for us who are able (via wonderful tools such as http://www.biblestudytools.com/ !) to read his writings today, is that there is nothing about us that would cause God to love us...we aren't just so amazingly wonderful or beautiful or intelligent that He is just enamored by us. There is nothing that we've done that brings God's love to us...we haven't created anything that He is standing in awe of. It is not because we have loved Him so much that He feels compelled to love us back (we really aren't the equivalent of God's puppy dogs, even though I sometimes look at my cocker spaniel,Tux, and think he understands me at about the same level I understand God!).
No - the ONLY reason that we are loved by God is that God loves us..."by His own sovereign will and pleasure." There is nothing about us that initiates the love relationship between God and us...it is ALL Him loving us first. 1 John 4:19 tell us, "We love him, because he first loved us."
So if you ever get a little (as my Daddy used to say) "too big for your britches"...stop and realize that without God's love reaching out to the unlovable (yes - that's you and me), we would never be able to come into relationship with our Creator. For while He loves us while we are sinners, His holiness cannot be approached by those whose sins have not been forgiven...the forgiveness that He has provided, because of His love, to us through Christ Jesus.
I'm asking for God's blessing on this message...that it is His message for us tonight and that it reaches the eyes that need to see it. For my constant prayer is that all the words that come out of this journaling are true to Him and to His Word. And my prayer is that anyone who is reading this either already knows Jesus as their Savior, or will start to really consider that the gift of God's love that we keep talking about, could be a reality in your life too.
1 comment:
I need God each and every hour of each and every day. What's the old say; "the proof is in the pudding". God proves his Love to me each and every hour of each and every day in that he has mercy on my soul. God Loves his Creation and he sent his Son to live on earth and allowed him to die and suffer and sacrifice his life to save us from sin - and to allow us (all his creation) to have Eternal Life. This is the proof of God's Love. I know Jesus Christ and I know he died for my sins and I know that he is my Savior.
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