God's Love & Gratitude

A devotional in Our Daily Bread entitled "What Matters Most" spoke of an ancient legend regarding the Apostle John. Apparently John received a complaint from one of his young disciples regarding John's incessant teaching of God's love. The young man said, "Why don't you talk about anything else?" John's reply was "Because there isn't anything else." This perspective is affirmed in his letters.

The devotion then iterates John 3:16, "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." and Romans 8:38-39, "neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." These are incredible promises.

Sometimes we get so sidetracked with doing good works and growing in Christ that promises such as these can seem to be just words. Focused reflection on them can restore the sense of gratitude that believers need in order to walk through the challenges and burdens that this earthly life brings.

Let's also consider what is involved in becoming spiritually alive, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now life in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)

Passion can be stirred through humility derived from 1 John 4:10-11 which puts us in our place, "In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." The Apostle John prefaces this with 1 John 3:1 when he says, "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are."

The famous "Prince of Preachers" from the 1800s, Charles Spurgeon, put it this way, "When the time comes for you to die, you need not be afraid, because death cannot separate you from God's love." Whether or not we believe it is irrelevant.

Jerry Bridges, an evangelical Christian author originally from Tyler in Texas, says it beautifully with, "God's unfailing love for us is an objective fact affirmed over and over in the Scriptures. It is true whether we believe it or not. Our doubts do not destroy God's love, nor does our faith create it. It originates in the very nature of God, who is love, and it flows to us through our union with His beloved Son."

I conclude this blog article with two last quotes - Psalm 136:26, "Give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures forever." and Colossians 2:6-7, "Therefore you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude."

Let's remember to be thankful for this incredible gift that we children of God have been given and pray for those who do not know the Lord God Almighty personally as do we. They have no idea what they are missing.