It is easier to love someone who is good to us and thinks as we do. This devotional reading looks at how God loves us even when we are estranged from Him.
Nuggets
- God loves us enough to forgive us of our sins.
- God loved us while we were not reconciled to Him.
An Unsolicited Love ran long, so I had to divide and rearrange it. I kept the connections and application sections for here.
So, if you haven’t read the first devotion, you might not recognize all the things in those two sections.
Let’s jump back in.
Let's Put It into Context
To read devotions in the On the Day of the Lord theme, click the button below.
Devotions in the Getting Started in Revelation study
The foundation of this series is Witherspoon’s sermon The Love of Christ in Redemption.
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Related Links
We the People
A Forgiving God
God loves us enough to forgive us of our sins.
God is Sovereign God. He could have presented Himself to us as a tyrant, a dictator. He could show us His power and His majesty.
Instead, God shows us His sympathetic side. He wants us to be a family, so He shows Himself as our Heavenly Father.
How do we know God’s presence? We have to put Him to the spiritual test. The Christian Weekly said that test is love in our hearts.
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Our Response to God’s Love
Only God’s love is the source of our redemption. It is only through faith that we accept God’s love.
It is through faith that we have a relationship with God. He is our Father, and we are His children.
But what is knowing God by His love all about, and how do we do that?
We have to use two of our senses to know God is near us.
Since God is a spirit, we can’t see Him; but we can see Him with the eyes of our heart (Eph. 1: 18). Open the eyes of our heart is a metaphorical way of saying we have to look at things through faith and trust in God. We have to open ourselves up to God’s power and love. Even though we don’t fully understand something, we have to trust God that His way leads to truth.
In other words, we can’t test our knowledge by worldly standards. We have to employ criteria that leads us to holy outcomes, not just intellectual knowledge.
We hear God by reading and listening to His Word.
We aren’t reading God’s Word to find knowledge. We are reading it to find God.
We aren’t reading God’s Word to find how to be a good person. We are reading it to find spiritual graces because, when we do, we find God.
God sent His Son Jesus because He loves us. For what purpose did He send Jesus? It was to shed His blood for our redemption.
This was the only way in which we could live through Him (I Jn. 4: 9 ESV). We’re talking spiritual life here.
Salvation from our sins only comes through Jesus dying on the cross to shed His blood, raising to life again, and ascending to Heaven to live for eternity.
We’re taking our study of the Book of Revelation as literally as possible. We have to take our look at love the same way. We can’t rewrite it, qualify it, or over-blow it.
We want to be holy. Holiness is a product of love. In fact, “Anyone who does not love does not know God …” (I Jn. 4: 8 ESV).
We show our love to God by following His laws and commandments.
One big component of love is sensitivity. It increases our capacity to feel.
That makes us able to feel things more deeply. However, it can be a bad scene when that love gets rocked.
There is something in which we can take comfort. “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8: 28 ESV).
We must reflect God’s love – just as we must reflect His other attributes.
God started it. He devised the Plan of Salvation before we were even created. He didn’t wait for us to sin.
We say God never changes – but His love does deepen, according to Vaughan.
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Think how deep God’s love is already! It was deep enough to sacrifice His own Son for our sakes.
Have you ever pictured Jesus on the cross? He must have been calm.
Ooo, baby. Jesus was hurting, but He didn’t cry out. He didn’t rail against the unfairness of it all.
Jesus hung on the cross and died for our sins because of His love for us.
This is showing us again that God’s love is steadfast.
Loving His Enemies
“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Rom. 5: 10 ESV)
God loved us while we were not reconciled to Him.
The purpose of the Plan of Salvation is to reconcile us — as we are — to God so we may have eternal life.
God’s Word is abundantly clear that God hates sin.
- “There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers” (Prov. 6: 16-19 ESV).
- “The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence” (Ps. 11: 5 ESV).
- “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear” (Isa. 59: 2 ESV).
The nature of sin is interesting. Yes, we can see it from a national – even a global – perspective.
Yet, sin is very personal. Each of us chooses to sin.
There is peer pressure. It is hard to go against the crowd.
Still, we choose whether to say yes or no to sin. No one else makes that choice for us.
Gifford told us how God can love sinful man. He wrote, “But God loves everything that He has made. He cannot love man as a sinner, but He loves him as man, even when he is a sinner.”
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That being said, sinners are enemies of God. Sin has taken us that far down.
I am sure there are those who would refute that position. Just because they don’t believe that not to be true doesn’t make it untrue.
It is as simple as are you for Him or against Him? There is no middle ground now, and there will be no middle ground on the Day of the Lord.
Thomas gave us ways we can determine if we are friend or foe.
- Do we habitually break His laws and commandments?
- Do we habitually disregard and snub His disciples?
- Do we associate with known sinners?
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Think about it this way. God provided reconciliation for His enemies because He wasn’t – and isn’t – our enemy.
Reconciliation is available to all who ABCD. That reconciliation only comes through Jesus Christ. “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Ac. 4: 12 ESV).
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
This is all God’s doing. “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling[c] the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (II Cor. 5: 18-19 ESV).
Restoration takes the inner spiritual chaos caused by sin and makes us a new creation. “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2: 20 ESV).
Yes, we are changed at the moment of conversion. But we have to continue to work out our salvation through sanctification.
What does all this show us? God’s love, grace, and mercy.
It is mind boggling. Jesus – holy and righteous where we aren’t – freely gave His life to save us – who are so not worthy of His sacrifice.
Jesus has accomplished the most difficult part.
Making the Connections #1
We can be sure that eternal life has been secured because of our belief in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It is all because of love.
God loves us enough to have sent Jesus to die for our sins. Jesus loves us enough to have laid down His life for us.
We have to love them enough to submit our lives to Them.
Making the Connections #2
Brown told us what all this shows us.
- Sin really corrupts us.
- God loves us anyway.
- Reconciliation only comes through the substitution of perfect Jesus for imperfect us.
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Because of Jesus’ great sacrifice for us, we should not only give up the practice of sin, but we should also give up the love of sin.
How Do We Apply This?
- Witness to those who are not saved of God’s love for them, warning them of the consequences of not receiving salvation.
- Submit to God’s Will born out of His love.
- Show our gratitude for His love.
- Imitate God’s love.
- Love God and pattern our love after His.
- Comply with God’s laws and commandments.
- Respond with joy and thanksgiving to God’s love.
- Don’t be deluded by self-righteousness.
- Love one another.
- Walk with God daily.
- Pray continually.
- Work out our salvation.
- Be sanctified so we can become holy.
- Use this life as preparation for the next.
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Father God. You didn’t have to forgive us after the original sin. But You forgave us even before that sin was committed. Thank You for Your unconditional love toward us. Amen.
What do you think?
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