Skip to main content

The Gift of Love

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. 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. [1 John 4:9-10]
The Bible teaches us that the love of God is not theoretical. God has actually proved his amazing love to us by sending His Son, the Lord Jesus to us. How does God sending Jesus reveal the incredible love of God to us? The apostle John answers that question for us in the passage above. Here are five reasons that makes the sending of Jesus an incredible gift of love. 


First, because of who the sender of this gift is. We know the weight of love of someone’s love for us by their status compared to ours. The same gift given to us by our next door neighbour has greater value to us, if it comes from Her Majesty the Queen. We know we are deeply loved because the Eternal God, who created all things, has sent us the gift of Jesus to us.

Secondly, because of whom the recipients of this gift are. We know the weight of someone’s love for us by how little we deserve it. If the gift comes from someone we have done favours for in the past, it would not prove their love as much as from someone have offended! God has sent his gift to underserving sinners. People are the enemies of God and are not able to love Him.

Thirdly,  because of what this gift of love has cost Him. We know the weight of someone’s love for us by what it cost the person to show us affection. If a person sacrifices all their life savings for us it means much more to us than if a person simply uses their spare change in the pocket! God has sent His only Eternal Son of God to come as a gift to us. It is not simply that God has sent someone else to come to us. God has come to us in the person of the second member of the Trinity to willingly offer himself as a precious sacrifice for our sins. 

The word John uses to describe this sacrifice is propitiation. It means a sacrifice that bears God’s wrath and turns it to favour. All human beings have rebelled against God and our sin provokes God to act against us with wrath and judgement! And yet God has offered to satisfy His deserved anger against us by sending God the Son to not only turn away this anger but fully absolve it! Jesus has willingly taken upon Himself the full punishment we deserve. He has fully absolved its full impact and ferocity intimately. This is the depth of God’s love for us who has placed our faith in Him.

Finally, we know the depth of God’s love for us because of the benefits of what this gift from God to us accomplishes. The greater the benefits we receive the more we feel loved! If the neighbour helps us to find the right shop to buy pampers, we will feel loved by them. If we have been kidnapped and the neighbour comes and shoots us the place up to free us, we will feel we even more loved by them!
The benefit of Jesus dying on the cross for us grants us forgiveness from our sins so that we may now share in the very life with God . Jesus died and rose from death to bring us into new union or koinonia with God. Jesus plugs us to into the very life of God. 

God sharing His very life with you is the greatest act of love we can ever know! God is perfect, you are sinner. God is immortal, you are mortal. Yet this wonderful God has offered to become one with you! He plugs himself to you by taking on all sin on Himself on the Cross! No one loves you like this God does because no one offers to bridge such gap as God has done for you in Jesus! What an immeasurable gift of love!

Love Series :


Copyright © Chola Mukanga 2017
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Am Mother

I think it is true to say that the Netflix film I Am Mother is one the most disturbing movies I have watched for a long time. The film is set in a near future. Human life has been wiped out. An artificial intelligence (AI) called Mother is living inside a bunker where thousands of embroyos are stored. It selects an embryo and initiates a program to grow a baby within 24 hours. The AI then goes on to raise the child as its mother over the next few years.  After 16 years, the girl, who now goes by the name of Daughter (Clara Rugaard) is a teenager. She has never been outside because Mother has told her that the air is toxic. Her time is spend being home schooled in science and ethics so that she can become a perfect human being. The bond between Daughter and Mother is unusually strong. To our surprise there does not appear to be any mental or pyschological trauma of having a machine as her mother.  The strength of the bond between man and machine is tested when a nameless Woma...
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →

Pornography as Occultism

There is a kind of helplessness that a man engaged in pornography exhibits. He often speaks of it in terms of a “struggle” or an “addiction.” Now both of those terms are accurate, I believe, but they distance a person from his sin in a soul-decaying manner. Pornography is not just an addiction; it is occultism. The man who sits upstairs viewing pornography while his wife chauffeurs the kids to soccer practice is not some unusual “pervert”; he is (like his forefather Adam) seeking the mystery of the universe apart from Christ. That’s the reason the one picture, stored in his memory, of that naked woman will never be enough for him. He will never be able to be satisfied because he will never be able to get an image naked enough. I say pornography is occultism because I believe the draw toward it is more than biological (though that is strong). The satanic powers understand that “the sexually immoral person sins against his own body” (1 Cor. 6:18). They understand that the pornographic ...
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →

I am what I am by Gloria Gaynor

Beverly Knight closed the opening ceremony of the Paralympics with what has been dubbed the signature tune of the Paralympics. I had no idea Ms Knight is still in the singing business. And clearly going by the raving reviews she will continue to be around. One media source says her performance was so electric that "there wasn’t a dry eye to be seen as she sang the lyrics to the song and people even watching at home felt the passion in her words" . The song was Gloria Gaynor's I am what I am . Clearly not written by Gloria Gaynor but certainly musically owned and popularized by her. It opens triumphantly: I am what I am / I am my own special creation / So come take a look / Give me the hook or the ovation / It's my world that I want to have a little pride in / My world and it's not a place I have to hide in / Life's not worth a damn till you can say I am what I am The words “I am what I am” echo over ten times in the song. A bold declaration that she ...
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →