This is Love

We need to be reminded how much the Father loves us.  He loves us so much he sent his son, The Son, to die for our salvation.  To die so that we can know the Father.  Know him as sons and daughters, know him intimately as friends, know him as a wife knows a husband.  Jesus is what the Father sees when he looks at those of us who are redeemed by the Blood, and so he sees a perfected creature.  Remember this: God looks at us through the lens of Jesus Christ; he never takes a peek around Jesus to see us, he always looks through His son.  And so we know that when God the Father looks at us he sees that we are pure and lovely, forgiven, white as snow.

He loves us this much: that while we were still sinners, while we were despicable to His nature and contrary to His righteousness, He sent Jesus to rescue us.  And Jesus took what we are owed on himself for everyone everywhere.  Jesus took the curse of absence from the True and Living God for us, so that we would never have to be absent from Him.  It's hard to understand, but this is what Jesus did: he experienced the worst there is to experience so that we can have the best that there is to have.

This is love: that a man would lay down his life for his friends.  The Bible tells us that there is no greater love than this.  Jesus laid down his life for his friends, those who do what he commands.  Being a friend of Jesus is no joke.  It's not a catchphrase, it's not a pleasant idea, it's not a cheesy slogan for Christian Culture.  Jesus laid down his life for his friends.  The meaning and purpose of life lies in being a friend of Jesus.

This is love: that our Maker formed our inward parts, knitted us together in our mothers' wombs.  God is not a tinkerer or merely a producer of things.  These words "form" and "knit" imply a good deal of skill and concentration.  They imply thoughtfulness and craftsmanship.  God did not take us lightly when he made us.  He loves us so much He made us as individual, unique, lovely people, each one created for a distinct life.  Lives of purpose.  God made us so that He could call us Friend and show us how to live.  No father ever loved his child like the Father loves His Children.

Love is the pure heart of God.  The scripture does not say that God is like; or that God is a crush; or that God is lust, or an obsession, or an affinity.  The scripture tells us that God is love.  That's deep.  If God is love, we'd better take a look at everything else in our lives we've called love and see if His fingerprints are on it.  Or better yet, ask Him.  Get up next to Him on the sofa and let Him put His arm around your shoulders and find out what love is like.  Once you've spent time in the Lord's heart, you come away with an understanding of love that you can't have without Him.

We need to be reminded of how much God love us, and sometimes the only one who's going to remind us is ourselves.  Put some scripture in your heart and remind yourself from time to time who you are and how much the Father loves you.  Oh, how He loves.