Tuesday, January 19, 2010

To "Know" Him is to Love Him.

Before we fall in love with someone, we usually get to know them. Someone might be gorgeous, and looking at them from "across a crowded room" might spark interest or desire for them, but to fall in love... it's most often because we have spent time with that "someone" and we are beginning to know their personality and "nature".



Many people find it difficult to love God. Why? Because we really don't know God. We might honor and respect God, but He wants us to love Him, like He loves us. That can be difficult if we are not interested in knowing God. 

Lets look at some scripture that gives us a basic understanding about God. Read them with an open mind. Put aside any preconceived notions about God, and let's take a look at what the Bible says about Him.


1. God IS Love and He loves us.

John 3:16
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.


1 John 4:16-1
16. And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17. By this, love is perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. 18. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. 19. We love, because He first loved us.



Romans 5:5-8
5. and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. 6. For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. 8. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Ephesians 3:17-19

17. so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; [and] that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18. may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19. and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.




2. God has understanding of human emotion and He loves us with passion.


Zephaniah 3:17
"The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love. He will rejoice over you with singing.

John 11:33-36
33. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her, [also] weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit, and was troubled, 34. and said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to Him, "Lord, come and see." 35. Jesus wept. 36. And so the Jews were saying, "Behold how He loved him!"  

Matthew 9:35-36
35. And Jesus was going about all the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. 36. And seeing the multitudes, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd.

We've looked at a lot of scripture, yet we have only scratched the surface in seeing how much and how deep God loves us. So many people look and think of God with the same "lens" that they use with their earthly father, yet God's love for us is incomparable. Earthly love comes no where near what God the Father feels for us. He is perfect and has perfect love for us.

Matthew 23: 37-39
37. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. 38. "Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! 39. "For I say to you, from now on you shall not see Me until you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!'"

I was just thinking last night about how I had heard on television once about a forest fire, and how they had found a momma bird in the aftermath that was scorched and lifeless, sitting on her nest. When the forestry people picked up her stiff charred body, a group of healthy baby birds were alive underneath. They were untouched by the ravages of the fire. Even though the momma could have flown away to safety she chose to stay and protect her little ones. My heart broke at the thought that Jesus is like that momma bird with us. He chose to stay and sacrifice Himself, so that we might have life.

I hope you think on these tender verses about Father God, and His Son, Jesus; that you might understand His great and passionate love for each one of us.


Blessings for a wonderful Day!
Debra

p.s. Laura asked a wonderful question about the Hebraic priesthood. Check the comments from yesterday if you have a moment.

5 comments:

  1. Debra, you are so right on this. We cannot possibly know someone we don't spend any time with and yet we say we "love" God.

    We don't love Him like he loves us. He gave his all. We find it hard to give God 10 minutes in prayer and an hour or so in church.

    This sure does make one think about what it truly means to say you love God.

    Blessings
    Rose

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  2. Such powerful truths in these verses! I was reading some of them over and over so they would penetrate my heart. I John 4:16 says that that Christ doesn't just love us as in an action, but He IS love. WOW. Perfect love (God) casts out fear. (Double Wow.) In a world so driven by competition, achievement, self absorbtion and materialism it is so wonderful to know that God loves us for who we are right now (while we were yet sinners) and we can just rest in His unconditional love. These truths are so simple yet so profound its hard to wrap your mind around them.

    I love the example of the Momma Bird. I think we can relate to that desire to want to protect and guard. And to think that God does this for us every day. He is mighty to save. There are so many aspects to Gods nature and character, it is to wonderful for words. I pray that His praise will be on my lips for all my days.

    Have a blessed day,
    Rebecca

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  3. I am ever thankful GOD loves me with a passion!
    Blessings, andrea

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  4. Hi Debra
    This I believe is what the Holy Spirit is doing today...calling us to know Him in a deeper way and to know Him is to love Him. I have seen the moving of the Holy Spirit in different ways the past 40 years, in the 70s & 80s was an outpouring of the baptism of the Holy Spirit with many miracles which led to many denomitations coming together and from that a great revival. Then I saw many fractions and it seemed the Honeymoon was over. The splits in the church led to many Christians fractured from the church and for various reasons do not have a home church now... I believe the Holy Spirit has been working on our individual relationship with the Father. Calling us to sit at His feet and know the Love of God. It brings me to ICor. 13. I can do all these wonderful things in the name of the Lord and have a great ministry but it is all nothing without love. I know this comment is getting long and I apologize but I would like to mention the last few days that my father was on earth - he was going through much suffering. He had been a man of authority and was very talented in every aspect. But now the flesh had been whittled away and he was a skeletal man in a wheelchair that could not do anything without help... But throughout all his ministries and preaching throughout the years (in Egypt they called him "the love of God Man") I had not seen the love of the Father as I saw in him then. He would just keep telling the Father how much he loved Him and calling out to Him. One of his last instructions to me was just to love the Father.
    Blessings

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  5. Hi Rebecca, what a wonderful testimony about your father, that people recognized his love for God in him. A wonderful legacy he has left you! And never worry over the length of a comment. I always love hearing all your insight!

    Rebecca S. I have a thick head at times, sometimes I have to read a scripture over and over, for days at a time, for God to put it all in there and make me see what He is saying. I'm so glad that these scripture today were a blessing!

    Rose, When I first started out on my quest for God, I had been in a place, just previously where I didn't give God 15 minutes a week, and just plain didn't love Him. I was greatful for salvation, but I really didn't KNOW Him. Oh, the difference it has made in my life!

    Andrea, I'm so glad He is passionate. He wants His people passionate also. Doesn't that remind you of the scripture about being hot or cold? and how lukewarm makes Him spit it out?

    Thanks gals for your taking the time to comment!
    love,
    Debra

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