“Behold what manner of love the
Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! ...” (1
John 3:1 NKJV)
The
extraordinariliness of God’s love for humankind is most evident in the elevation
of believers in Christ to the glorious status of children of the Most High. The
implications of this transaction are deep and rooted in unfathomable mystery. For
example, by making us His children in Christ, God subsumes our humanity in His
divinity. Apostle Peter affirmed that in Christ, we become “partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is
in the world through lust.” (2 Peter 1:4 NKJV). Again, by becoming God’s
children, we receive His love; consequently, our mortality becomes subsumed in
His immortality. “If we love our Christian
brothers and sisters, it proves that we have passed from death to life. But a
person who has no love is still dead” (1 John 3:14 NLT). Receiving God’s
love in Christ and serving as a channel through which that love is extended to
others is a proof of possessing eternal life. God’s love for us is so amazing
and so astonishingly outlandish that John, the beloved apostle, could not find
words to describe it. Nobody, before or after him has been able to describe it
either. All he could do was to invite us to behold it, to wonder at it and to
stand amazed at its profound immensity.
God
could love so limitlessly and so freely because His is love. The apostle John
declared, “Beloved, let us love one
another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows
God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:7-8
NKJV). God is love! He is exclusively so, such that nothing is love that is
called love if it does not emanate from Him. Love is the essence of God’s
nature. His love is uncaused and unconditional. Nobody could ever earn the love
of God. He proves His love for us by sacrificing Jesus for our sins. “God showed how much he loved us by sending
his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through
him” (1 John 4:9 NLT). He did not
wait for us to become good before He sent Christ to die for us. “But God showed his great love for us by
sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8 NLT).
God loved us when we were most unlovable! He reaches out to us in mercy in our
most despicable condition. His love for
us does not depend on anything good we did or fail to do. It was entirely pure
love given at no cost to the most undeserving. Such a love had not been
witnessed before in human history. It is unparalleled in content and
unspeakable to experience. Hence, John invites us all to behold it with amazing
wonder.
God’s
love is so out of reach to mortal humans that the only way we can ever access
it is through divine bestowal. To bestow is “placing something really valuable
or honouring in the hands of another, thereby conferring a position of
responsibility to the person.” God, in
bestowing His love on us, gives us something extremely valuable and honouring.
This bestowment confers on us a position of responsibility –“Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought
to love one another” (1 John 4:11 NKJV). Receiving the love of God makes it
mandatory that we love others. God loves us so we can love Him and extend His
love to others. “We love Him because He
first loved us” (1 John 4:19 NKJV). We cannot love Him or other people
unless we first receive His love in Christ. He desired that those who have
received His love in Christ would serve as channels of His love to others. “And this commandment we have from Him: that
he who loves God must love his brother also” (1 John 4: 21 NKJV). This is
the pathway to glory.
As
God’s children, we are children of love. Love is in our DNA and we must live in
such a way as to let the light of God’s transforming love shine steadily out of
us to give the light of heaven to the world of darkness. You will do this as you receive God’s love,
grow God’s love, celebrate God’s love, demonstrate God’s love, and foster God’s
love. These constitute all we are called to be and to do as Christians
–Ambassadors of God’s love. May the Lord fill us with His love until it
overflows towards the healing and saving of those we come in contact with in
Jesus name.
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