Today’s Bible Verse
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. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
Ephesians 3:18-19
The Cross: You Are Loved
In 1980, there was a song that hit the charts called, “Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places.” Some of you may remember and some may not but we all gotta say that we have looked for love in the wrong places sometime in our lives. Looking for acceptance, looking for affirmation, looking for affection.
The song says…
“I was lookin’ for love in all the wrong places
Lookin’ for love in too many faces
Searchin’ their eyes
Lookin’ for traces of what I’m dreaming of…”
But one day we will see that the Cross is the everlasting declaration of God’s love for us. The only true love, the only real love, the only unfailing love.
1 John 4:9-10 says, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
John tells us in this verse that the God kind of love is not something which originated with man. This kind of love can only come from God. And it came from God to each and every one of us. As we read earlier, it was God who loved us first. God’s love is not simply a feeling or an emotion but a choice, an intentional act of someone’s will. John taught that love needs to be acted out (1 John 3:18). We experienced and learned this through the example God gave to us. God sent Jesus to the world as an act of His love. The Cross provided the only sufficient payment, once for all, to cover the sins of the world. He is the perfect sacrifice, without sin (Hebrews 4:15).
Those who received God’s love and truly love Him will act out that love, through obedience to His Word, surrendering our purpose and plans for His and giving love without expecting anything in return. Love is something God showed us first, by sending Jesus. Our love for Him is ultimately rooted in His unconditional love for us. True love involves action, and not just feelings.
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8).
How does God prove His love? The Cross.
How do we know God loves us? The Cross
The Cross will stand forever as the greatest demonstration of God’s love.
And if God gave His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ when we were at your worst, what circumstances could ever make Him stop loving us? Jesus’ death on the Cross reconciled us back to the Father and He redeemed us. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace (see Ephesians 1:7). (Pastor Pattie Eselu)
Change My Story
Where have you looked for love? Where have you looked for acceptance? Have you settled for a love with conditions? A love that could never satisfy your hunger for love. As a result of Jesus’ unconditional love and sacrifice for us, we have the opportunity to experience His perfect love forever. We are accepted in the beloved and the Bible says that, “…neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).
This is what our Lord Jesus Christ did for us. Not just in the physical realm (although it was a physical payment with His own physical body). But more importantly, in the spiritual realm. Our freedom cost Jesus everything. It cost His perfect life and His precious Blood (1 Peter 1:18-19). He gave it all because He loved. He is love.
Here is the place you will find love. At the Cross. The Cross is the everlasting declaration of God’s love for us. The only true love, the only real love, the only unfailing love.
Today’s Declaration
Today, and each day of my life, I will experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully the Lord will reveal it to me in the Cross. I am made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God (see Ephesians 3:18-19).
