What God’s Love Means for Us

In this post, let me share with the deep meaning of the unimaginable and indescribable love of God for you and me.


A touching story

A story is told about a soldier who was finally coming home after having fought in Vietnam.

He called his parents from San Francisco.

“Mom and Dad, I’m coming home, but I have a favor to ask. I have a friend I’d like to bring home with me.”

“Sure,” they replied, “we’d love to meet him.”

“There’s something you should know,” the son continued, “he was hurt pretty badly in the fighting. He stepped on a land mine and lost an arm and a leg. He has nowhere else to go, and I want him to come live with us.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, son. Maybe we can help him find somewhere to live.”

“No, Mom and Dad, I want him to live with us.”

“Son,” said the father, “you don’t know what you’re asking. Someone with such a handicap would be a terrible burden on us. We have our own lives to live, and we can’t let something like this interfere with our lives. I think you should just come home and forget about this guy. He’ll find a way to live on his own.”

At that point, the son hung up the phone. The parents heard nothing more from him.

A few days later, however, they received a call from the police. Their son had died after falling from a building, they were told. The police believed it was suicide.

The grief-stricken parents flew to the place where their son is and were taken to the city morgue to identify the body of their son.

They recognized him, but to their horror, they also discovered something they didn’t know:

Their son had only one arm and one leg.

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Easier to love

This is a sad story that illustrates a sad reality in the world we live in.

It is easier to love others when they are lovable. When there’s less sacrifice to be made, it is easier to love.

In our story, the parents don’t want to be given an additional burden.

As humans, we do understand why their parents acted this way.

Life is hard enough for many of us and adding unnecessary burden may seem to make things more difficult.

I would also venture to say that the parents would still even accept their son even if he has been badly injured. 

After all, he is still their child.

It’s just that they didn’t know that the injured friend was their son.

If they only had known it, they might have acted differently.

That’s just how human nature works.

The great love of our Father

Thankfully, that’s not how our heavenly Father works.

I want us to reflect on the magnitude of God’s love toward us.

Perhaps, the most popular verse in the Bible, John 3:16 gives us a powerful statement that summarizes how Yahweh loved us so much.

Let’s read:

“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.”

Now, notice,, God loved the world. It didn’t say He only loved the Jews, the Christians, or only a select group of people. But the text clearly tells us that God loved the world. He loved every single person who has ever existed, from the time of Adam to the last person who will ever be born.

And how did God the Father demonstrated His love toward us? He gave His only begotten Son. Now, that’s incredible.

That’s something that you and I could never comprehend with our limited human mind. Can you imagine, the Supreme God of this entire universe giving up His only begotten and beloved Son for stiff-necked, rebellious, and sinful human beings?

Perhaps, you can die for a friend, for your children, your husband or wife, for your parents, but can you die for a complete stranger? Can you die for an enemy? Can you die for that crazy guy running around naked in the streets?

While we were sinners

Every time I think about God’s love brethren and the unimaginable sacrifice He made, I can’t help but get overwhelmed with thankfulness. I’m thankful that God isn’t like any of us, that we only love those who love us back, that we only love those who deserved to be loved, that we only love those who are lovable.

In Romans 5:8-10, let’s read:

6 For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly — when we are still spiritually weak, when we are helpless, when all hope seems to be lost, what happened?

Christ died for the ungodly — We are not simply helpless people, but we are ungodly, sinners who deserve nothing, but death.

When we are still in that condition, Christ has already died for us.

 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Paul was telling us that a person may die for a good person, but rarely, someone will die for someone who is a sinner. Yet, God demonstrated His love by allowing Christ to die while we were sinners.

He didn’t wait for us to be righteous. He didn’t wait for us to get converted. He didn’t wait for us to change.

Right there and then, Christ died for us!

We further read:

9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

The death of Christ reconciled us to God, but it was by His life that we are saved!

It is by God’s grace

That’s why, let us never ever forget this very important truth: it is by the grace of Yahweh that we are saved.

We just read that we are saved by the Messiah’s life. We are not saved because of how good and righteous we might be. Nothing within our power can remove the penalty of sin wrought upon us.

With this in mind, we should avoid ridiculing other people simply because they don’t believe the same doctrines as we do. And definitely, we must not condemn them for not knowing the truth. God loves those people as much as He loves us. And if it weren’t because of God’s grace, we could have been those people.

If it weren’t because of God’s love, we will not be here, having a relationship with God.

It’s just that everyone has their own timing and our time is now and I pray that we don’t waste our one chance to salvation.

God is love

Let’s go to as our final verse for this message: I John 4:16, 19:

16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

Did you read that? God is love.

Love isn’t simply the things God does, but instead, He is the very definition of
love. quote
Love isn’t simply the things God does, but instead, He is the very definition of
love.

Love isn’t simply the things God does, but instead, God is the very definition of love.

Everything that He thinks, says and does comes from love. Sadly, we forget about this biblical truth, that God is love.

We thought that God only loves us when our prayers are answered, when we are healthy when we have plenty of food to eat.

Especially when we go through trials in life, we tend to doubt God’s love for us. Does God really love me? Does He really care? Does He even know what I’m going through right now?

Let me tell you friends, Yes, He does love you, He cares for you, and He definitely knows every single thing about you.

When you know that God loves you, that He will not spare anything to save you, that He even sacrificed His own Son just for us, we gain a better perspective in life.

That no matter what happens, we know that God will work things out together for good because you know why? Because He loves you.

19 We love Him because He first loved us. 1 John 4:16-19

Because God loves us, the only logical and natural response should be to love Him back and because we love God, we also love one another. And most importantly, because we love God, we will keep His commandments.

Friends, let us not forget the love of God for us and how that love led our heavenly Father to sacrifice His Son just to redeem us from the death penalty of sin.

May this understanding keep us thankful, humble, and encouraged to keep running the Christian race that set before us.

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