The Love of God in Our Life
In the culture we live in, love often must be earned. If you perform well in front of others, they will love you more. If you perform poorly, they will love you less.
This may be a silly example, but at the time I write this, it is a week after the Dallas Cowboys lost in the first round of the playoffs after earning the number 2 overall seed. The love for the Cowboys grew throughout the season because they performed well, but after losing last week, I think it’s safe to say that that love has diminished among many.
In a more serious example, I know of many grown men who are still trying to earn the love of their fathers (many of whom have even passed) based on their accomplishments. They got the impression from him growing up that the better they performed, the more proud he would be and the more he would love them.
It just seems to make sense that the more we do for people, the more they will love us. The less we do, the less they will love us. This can apply to our spouses, kids, friends, co-workers, teachers, pastors, and anyone and everyone else. But it can also apply in our minds to God.
Obey God’s commands, go to church, read your Bible, and give to the poor, and God will love you more. Disobey God, sleep in on Sunday, watch Netflix instead of reading your Bible, or hold tightly to your money, and God will love you less. It makes sense in our minds. We don’t deserve to be loved based on our actions, so we convince ourselves that He doesn’t love us.
So we get back to trying to do the right things and begin to feel better about our choices and think that God must be more proud of us now. It feels like we have the right for Him to love us more now.
But is that true? Does the love of God in our lives depend on our performance?
No! I love what Philip Yancey wrote regarding this topic in his book, What’s So Amazing About Grace?...
“Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more…And grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less…Grace means that God already loves us as much as an infinite God can possibly love.”
Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?
GOD IS LOVE
In 1 John 4:16, John writes that God is love. It’s part of His nature. It is who God is, and He never changes (Malachi 3:6). God is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).
If God is love, and He never changes, then He is always loving. His love for you does not change when you fail. His love does not change when you disobey, miss church, don’t read your Bible, or raise your voice at your kids.
His love also doesn’t change when you obey Him, go to church, read through the Bible in a year, or serve your spouse or kids in some way. Those are all good things, and they can be things that God prompts and empowers you to do, but they don’t make His love for you increase in any way because God is love and cannot love you any more than He already does.
DOES THAT MEAN IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT I DO?
When we begin to process the fact that God loves us no matter what, many of us will begin to think that it doesn’t matter what we do. That couldn’t be further from the truth!
God gave His one and only Son, Jesus, on the cross so that your sins could be forgiven and He could come to dwell in you and express His life through you.
When you and I choose to walk in our flesh, that is still sin. It’s not God’s best for us. It doesn’t change His love for us one bit, but we will miss out on experiencing the Life of Christ through us. We will feel the effects of that sin in our lives.
Oftentimes, we feel yucky after we sin. We feel empty. That is because sin never satisfies, and God is at work even in those times to show us that He is the Life over and above everything else we try to find it in outside of Him.
It’s His love for us that uses even what we do in our flesh, to draw us back to Him and the Life and Love that He has for us and wants to express through us.
THE LOVE OF GOD IN OUR LIFE
God’s love in our life is like an infinite spring. The Source never diminishes. There is an unceasing flow.
When we begin to grasp God’s infinite and unchanging love for us, it frees us from having to live a performance-based life. We don’t have to focus on sin-management.
We are free to live in His love and walk with Him. We can rest and quit trying to earn His love.
Knowing that we can’t do anything to make Him love us more or to love us less, means that we can enjoy our relationship with Him instead of feeling like we have to always look over our shoulders to see if He approves of each step that we take in life.
Living in His love allows us to trust Him and to watch Him express His love through us. Then others begin to experience the Life and love of Christ in our relationships with them as a by-product of living in His love.
This is the love of God in your life. Rest in it and experience it today.
It's the most powerful force in the universe, our only hope for love and forgiveness, and a foretaste of eternal life: amazing, radical, life-changing grace.
Millions of lives have been changed by award-winning author Philip Yancey's startling exploration of grace at street level. Grace is the one thing the world can't duplicate, the healing force we need, and the key to transforming a broken world.
In this revised and updated edition of his personal and provocative book, Yancey offers true portraits of grace's life-changing power.
With powerful stories, rich theology, and practical suggestions, Yancey challenges us to become living answers to a world that desperately needs to know, What's So Amazing About Grace?
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