Continuing to look at the love of Jesus Christ, this daily devotional looks at the depth of Jesus’ love as well as the height of His love.
Nuggets
- Jesus’ love for us is so intense that He willingly gave up His life — gave up Heaven — so His blood could be used as the sacrifice for us.
- Because we are children of God, we are heirs of God.
Devotions in the Comprehending Christ’s Love series
Starting with the last devotion, we began looking at Baker’s sermon entitled Comprehending Christ’s Love. We are looking at the mind-boggling topic to try to take out some of the boggling.
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We are just going to dive right in. Like we said in the last devotion, I think Baker is talking interchangeably about God’s everlasting love and Jesus’ love.
Let's Put It into Context
“And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is” (Eph. 3: 18 NLT)
Here is what we pulled out of the last devotion.
- God loves us even after we disobeyed Him.
- God loves us so much that He designed a plan to restore our relationship with Him.
- God’s everlasting love means that — no matter what we do — He is going to love us.
- What He won’t forgive is our continued unbelief. He won’t forgive us when we don’t submit to him.
- Even as His love for us is going to last forever, God is going to have an agreement with us that will last forever.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
The depth of this love is seen in raising sinners from condemnation and hell
“If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!” (Ps. 139:8 ESV)
Jesus came to earth for one reason — to pay the penalty for our sins. He came to be our Redeeming Savior.
He didn’t come to be our Social Savior.
Jesus came so that — when we make the conscious choice to submit to Him — He could have the Holy Spirit regenerate us. Regeneration is the change in us that God brings about when we go from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
It is really important that we ABCD and are regenerated before we die. If we don’t, we are spiritually dead.
Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
Those that are spiritually alive are the sheep on the right. They are bound for Heaven.
Those who are spiritually dead are the goats on the left. They are bound for hell.
To read a devotion in the Hell Does Have Fury series, click on the appropriate button below.
Glossary
Why did God give us the opportunity to get out of Sheol, ie., another name for hell? The song says Jesus didn’t want Heaven without us.
What a Beautiful Name
Vocalist: Elaine Guthals
Keyboard: Chris Vieth
Yep, that’s right. God’s love for us was the bottom line. That is why He designed the plan of salvation.
Jesus’ love for us is so intense that He willingly gave up His life — gave up Heaven — so His blood could be used as the sacrifice for us. For us, people.
No, God isn’t going to change His mind and just let everyone is — whether they have ABCDed or not. “Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be deceived: No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or ales who have sex with males, no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God’s kingdom. And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (I Cor. 6: 9-11 CSB).
We have to be righteous — sanctified — to be where God wants us to be.
The height of this love consists in making sinners heirs of God, and bringing them finally to glory
“For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time for my departure is close. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. There is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me, but to all those who have loved his appearing” (II Tim. 4: 6-8 CSB).
When we ABCD, we become children and heirs of God. Our inheritance is heaven. That means that we do not need to fear death because we will spend eternity with God.
Paul knew he was not going to be on this earth too much longer. The end of his life — as he knew it — was coming quickly.
However, Paul knew that his physical death will not be the end. His reward was coming.
In these verses to his “son” Timothy, Paul evaluated his life. He fought, finished, and kept. In other words, he did what God asked him to do.
Because he was a child of God, Paul was going to inherit the blessings God has for His children. Remember, contrary to worldview belief, not everyone is a child of God.
We are God’s creation. We are made in His image.
But we are children of God only when we have ABCDed.
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
Glossary
Because we are children of God, we are heirs of God. Oh, yes. God called sinners to be His heirs.
Glossary
Let’s chase a rabbit a second. Look what Little had to say about recognizing we are citizens of two spheres. He wrote, “First, then, he [Paul] had wakened up to the reality and requirements of the spiritual life. Man is a creature of two worlds, but of one sphere of being; standing he is within the boundary of time, but one foot is planted across the frontier of eternity. Little we see of man’s real working, just here and there a hint is given by the definite act which meets the senses, excites our blame or sets the chorus of praise re-echoing through the halls of history, but day by day and hour by hour man’s spirit, shrouded, veiled from his fellow man, is at work in the spirit sphere.”
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To me, that really explains the battle we experience. Disciples of Christ want to follow God’s laws and commandments. However, there is this battle of spirits going on.
But we don’t see the battles a lot of times. We definitely don’t see all of the spirit sphere workings.
What it boils down to is that we need to be in a spirit of sacrifice. We are going to have our “… struggle with [our] own corruption, they have been conscious of sudden assaults, of well-timed suggestions of sin, alarming, astounding, distinctly to them distinguishable from any picture of imagination; painfully, evidently separated from [ourselves], and clearly coming with the force and horror of the agency of a personal tempter,” as Little warned us.
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We need to sacrifice our desire of control over how things are going to be. We need to turn away from the sin that is tempting us.
But how does this tie into God’s love for us? Hall believed that disciples can see their death coming. He cited Jacob, Joshua, Jesus, Peter, and Paul. They see this because they are watching as Jesus commanded.
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Glossary
More importantly, disciples will be rewarded for their life of obedience. God does ask us to do the do’s and not do the don’ts — and never acknowledges our success or failure at it.
Kirk brought up a good point. This ministry wasn’t something in which Paul just dabbled. He was a warrior.
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Paul fought a real enemy. He has to use wisdom and understanding to conquer Satan — even though he was invisible. He knew he was in this battle because he was a child of God — and Satan is an enemy of God’s — so Satan was Paul’s enemy.
We fight that enemy, too. We are going to have to stay strong. If we do, we will get the reward that heirs get.
Making the Connections
The light bulb isn’t going to go off and we aren’t going to have that ah-ha moment until God flips the switch. We can’t comprehend things until He gives us the understanding.
I don’t know when Little wrote his sermon, but things haven’t changed much. He wrote about a “… subtle tolerance of sin flow[ing] through society, invad[ing] the Church, deprav[ing] the mind?” Isn’t that still happening today?
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When that tolerance takes over, even disciples of Christ loose sight of what God is really calling us to be and do. That is because we have lost sight of His character.
How Do We Apply This?
• God isn’t into group sales. He is looking for us individually — specifically.
• God loves us, but the blessings come from when we love Him back.
• We can only accept His covenant of Grace when we do so in faith.
• We have to be a living sacrifice. We have to totally submit to God.
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To read a related devotion, click the button below.
We’ve gone through a lot of real estate in these two devotions. We can see God’s love for us when we look. We don’t have to look too hard.
It takes a little bit of an effort to comprehend God’s love for us. It takes an effort to comprehend why Jesus agreed to die for us.
We will get there when we seek God. He will give us the understanding we need here in this life. Eventually, He will make all things known to us.
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11).
We just have to bask in God’s love until then.
Father God. Your love for us knows no bounds and knows no end. Even when we are far away from You, You love us and call us back to You. Help us to comprehend what is needed so that we can search for You and seek You. Amen.
What do you think?
Leave me a comment below or head over to my Facebook group for some interactive discussion.
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