Saved BY Love TO Love
The solution to the sin problem is the perfect and finished work of Christ on our behalf. “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Everything that we need to know about the reason Jesus came into the world is summed up in this verse. God loved us, Jesus came to die for us. If there had been another way, would it not have been easier on God? Why did God choose to send His Son into the world? So that we can be saved. We come to salvation through Christ. He was willing to do whatever it took to save us, and He did.
Jesus loved us and gave Himself for us. When we think of love, we need to think of the Father sending His Son to die for us. And we need to think of the Son loving us enough to come and die for us. Have we carefully considered the fact that—not only did God give His Son—but Jesus gave Himself? “I am crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
No one can be delivered from sin by self-effort. Everyone who is delivered from sin is delivered by the blood of Christ, for it is the only remedy that God has provided or that He will accept. We must look to Christ by faith and consider the one who has loved us so—and the price that He paid for our sins. Jesus is the greatest gift that was ever given. If we need more than Christ for us to know that God loves us, we are being defiant. Nothing can prove the love of God like the death of Christ.
God is a God of love (1 John 4:7). That is the case whether we understand His ways or not. He has always been a God of love and He will always be a God of love. No words from the unbeliever can change the fact of God’s nature. “Know therefore that the Lord your God is God. He is the faithful God, keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and obey His commands (Deuteronomy 7:9). “For the Lord loves the just and will not abandon His faithful ones” (Psalm 37:28).
The love of God is proven by the death of Christ. “This is how God proved His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world so that we could live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us so much, we should also love one another” (1 John 4:9-11). We are called to give ourselves in service to others because Christ first gave Himself to us. We should smile and be excited about what God has done for us in Christ. And we should then strive to let that motivate us to serve others in His name. That is the only fitting response.
“And therefore we know about and depend entirely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in Him” (1 John 4:16). Love is the proof of our relationship with God. We know that we have accepted the saving love of God when we show His love to others and consider His feelings in everything that we do. The way we treat others is the way we treat God. Consider that when you serve others, God accepts that as service to Him. And conversely, if we hate others, we hate God. “We love Him because He first loved us. If anyone says, I love God, yet hates their brother, they are a liar. For if someone does not love their brother, whom they have seen, how can they love God, whom they have not seen” (1 John 4:19-20).
Dewayne Dunaway
