Living Loved – Loved To Love Others
1 John 4:19 (ESV)
We love because he first loved us.
1 John 4:7-11
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
Romans 5:8
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
10 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. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another
1 John 4:16-21
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides (resides/remains) in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is (love) so also are we (love) in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. (We are perfected in love by love and while we are loving others) 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
“God’s love is not based on me, it’s placed on me and it’s the place from where I should live.”
Do you know that you’re loved? Not because of what you have, do or are – possessions, projects or position. But because of Who our Glorious God is!
We live in a world that Jesus promised would have pain, rejection, trial and trouble and none of these things and more were foreign to Him. Yet we are commanded to love those who hurt, betray and curse us with and in light of His love for us.
Does anyone here battle with thoughts of rejection, doubt or past hurts and disappointments? Knowing and believing that God’s love never abandons us, when we are constantly lied to by the enemy and his adversaries, protects and sustains us as we fight the good fight of faith! Believing that we are forever loved!
So what is emphatically important is that we are Living Loved! Convinced that God’s love will not run out on us, that His love has no boundaries or conditions and most of all isn’t fecal when we are.
This year we are going to take an in depth look at His eternal, faithful, sacrificial, unconditional, steadfast and amazing love and with the help of the Holy Spirit become convinced that the God of the Universe and the King of all kings loves you more thoroughly and extravagantly than you know.
Ephesians 5:1-2
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
1 John 3:1 (NIV)
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
And when we arrive at this Truth our lives will become amazing instruments of love, because we like John the apostle will come to the truth filled reality that I am one who Jesus loves!
In Him we find all the love and acceptance we have ever longed for!
So this year with the Lord’s help I will be writing devotions or sharing others devotions or testimonies – share yours please. That we might have a conversation together this year about how loved we are by the Lord! And how much He wants us to be instruments of His love to others and in doing so we are perfected in His love!
John 13:34-35
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
I believe that this year will be filled with healing and revealing, as we discover that we are pursued by a love that is never diminished, taken or shaken. Jesus’ presence / feet will not be taken from us (Luke 10:38-42).
Practical – It’s hard to live something we don’t feel sometimes. It’s easy to live loved when I feel loved. Fear, Flesh and feelings (natural) often distract and attempt to diminish His love for us. But faith governed by His Spirit calls us to the Truth that we are always and forever loved in Christ.
Romans 8:38-39
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I believe that the key to this mindset is more time with the one who loves you, more moments at His feet that He promises will not be taken from us. We are the ones prone to forget and desperately need to remember that He loves me!
Galatians 2:20
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.
2019 Challenge – Don’t miss an opportunity to be in His Word! Make Sunday Celebration a priority, make Sabbath a date day with Him, get involved in a Life Group, expand your personal time with the Lord (QT, TAG). Incorporate more prayer time in your rhythms of life. Sit at His feet and be reminded of His Truth that you are loved!
Don’t wear the robe of rejection but the robe of righteousness that the love of God through Christ has given you and loving others will be as natural as breathing.
Are you tired of being a victim of your feelings and insecurities? Allowing circumstances and situations to dictate lies to you about who you are or are not? It’s time to reject those feelings and lies and embrace the Truth that God loves you and wants you to begin Living Loved!
Our prayer this year – Ephesians 3:14-21
For this reason (that you don’t lose heart) I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Most of the things that trip us up, distract, defeat or disable us are due to not believing that God loves us. I believe that if we pray this prayer and develop a mantra that God loves us that will go a long way to undermining the enemy’s arsenal to steal, kill and destroy us.
1 John 4:19
We love because he first loved us.
Pray