This Is Love

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This is Love
by PJ Salas

"This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the payment for our sins." 1John4:10.

This Bible verse is a concise and thoroughly complete definition of love; and while it is brief, it is to the point and powerfully comprehensive.

Christ declared that there is no greater love than that of a person who lays down their life for a friend. Jesus has laid down His life for whosoever will choose to be called His friend. (John15:13,14).

Genuine Love

The greatest love is the love of God. Apart from God there is no love, at all, for He is love (1John 4:8,16). Love comes from Him; and love is clearly seen and fully understood in the sacrificial gift of Himself on our behalf.

The Almighty became the incarnate Christ who lived among His own creation as one of us; and He did this that He may understand our plight, and pay the penalty that sin exacts, liberating us from its bondage.
This is love.

Incarnate Christ

God, Creator of the worlds, Maker of heaven and earth, He who gives life, Lord and Sovereign over all, stooped to His own creation, and became one of us.

Jesus lived and died as a human being; but not as many live, nor did He die a usual death. Christ lived an impoverished life filled with struggle and sacrifice. He died a shamefully cruel and excruciating death, and He did this that we may be free from sin and its devastating effects. This is love.

Genesis

Love in its deepest and truest sense is realized in Jesus, in His sacrifice for us, His creation, who turned and walked away from Him; and still, He loves us.

God created us perfect human beings. He placed us in a perfect world where He supplied our every need, bountifully. The Lord provided good labor, occupying us in wholesome industry. (Genesis2:15). He withheld nothing from us, with only one exception, one, only one.

God forbade Adam and Eve to partake of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for if they did it would bring death; everything else was theirs to enjoy, liberally, abundantly, copiously. (Genesis2:4-25). The Lord lavished earth's first pair with a lush opulence beyond anything we can fathom.

Deceived

Eden was uncorrupted by sin; nothing decayed, nor died, nothing. All was exquisitely beautiful. The aromas, the scents and fragrances, the sights and sounds thoroughly delighted Adam and Eve.

In the midst of all this sumptuous bounty and magnificent splendor Eve wandered to the forbidden. She tasted and offered to her husband, who ate also. Eve, convinced by satan that she would not die, now begins to die, and see and experience the effects of the ravages of disobedience.

Shame and Disgrace

Forced from the Garden earth's first parents witnessed the consequences of their disobedience, and the ever lasting effects it brought upon all humanity. They experienced the decaying of sin, the corruption and dying.

Adam and Eve knew life at its best, in perfection of beauty and goodness, now only to live in a continual state of deterioration. Nothing died before disobedience, nothing; but now everything is dying. Furthermore, they could no longer live in the Garden home created for their eternal bliss. They were banished, lest they eat from the Tree of Life and live in an eternal state of morbidity. (Genesis3:22-24).

Disobedience

Discord, instability, and turmoil are the result of our disobedience to God, which began in the Garden of Eden. God in His mercy has not only paid the price for our sins, but He has made a way for us to obey, if we will choose.

In our blindness obedience is foreign, for sin cultivates the desire for the profane. It distorts our view, it skews our thinking, and causes our reasoning to blur.

Obedience

Living as our Creator instructs us is in our best interest. Jesus teaches that obedience to God is love, true love. He said if you love Me, keep My commandments. (John14:15).

In the beginning Eve and Adam did not keep God's command, and it cost all humanity our lives, literally. Obedience is love. "And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments…" 2John1:6.

Loving Creator

We serve an extraordinarily gracious and forgiving Creator. Despite our rebellion, which has brought disease and death, our loving heavenly Father, our tender and kind Creator, determined to save us from ourselves and sin.

The Lord could have rid Himself of us. But, instead of wiping us from the face of our planet, He chose to understand us, to forgive us, to take our place, and pay the penalty sin exacts. This is love.

Eden Restored

God, who loves us, who laid Himself down for us, that we may live without sin and its penalty, has restored to us eternal life, lost in the Garden of Eden. We are not immortal beings, we are mortal (Genesis3:22-24; 1Corinthians15:51-53); however, Christ, through the sacrifice of Himself, has given us the opportunity to live forever in eternal goodness and beauty.

Through the love of Jesus, we can once again know the Edenic reality God designed for us in the beginning (Revelation21:1,4).

"God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."  John3:16.

Deliverance

Jesus is coming back again. He came once as a baby tucked away in a manager. His second coming will not be so quiet. Christ will come in the clouds of glory with all the holy angles, and every eye will see Him. (Matthew24:30; Mark13:26; Revelation1:7). Jesus is coming to rescue all who trust in Him from this world of rebellion and sin.

Redeeming Love

Open your heart and let the light of God's love come rushing in, and fill you with the knowledge of your everlasting need of Jesus, that your life may be whole and your future blessed.

And this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loves us and died for us, to give us freedom from the penalty of sin, freedom from bondage to sin, and freedom from eternal loss, that we may forever be with Him who is love. Our genesis will once again be our reality.

"This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loves us, and sent His Son to be the payment for our sins." 1John4:10.