Skip to main content

The Presence of Love

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him [1 JOHN 4:15-16]
The love of God publicly proven in the coming of Jesus was not merely a love displayed to us, it is a love intimately experienced by us! One of the most important truths repeatedly stated by John is that God now lives in anyone who has hearted trust in Jesus as the Son of God.

Confessing Jesus as Son of God is not simply accepting Jesus is God, it is having trust in Jesus that shows evidence of a changed life of love . John is saying when we turn to Jesus, God comes and lives inside of us. Because God is love, we a life shared with God in love.

God living in us generates an inner confidence that God really does love us and this is what enables us to love other people as well! Because Jesus lives in us and us in Him we now have inner confidence that we belong to God and that God has loving given himself to us.

Being a follower of Jesus is different from any other religion. Our faith in Jesus is a living, personal, dynamic and intimate relationship with God. God now lives you and you in Him. He talks to you through His Word and ministers to your heart through God the Spirit. You speak directly to Him in prayer and he hears you! This is personal intimate love to us.

American writer Elbert Hubbard famously said, “a friend is the person who knows all about you and yet still likes you”. If that is true God is best friend because He is the only friend who forgives us upfront and gives you all of himself to us. Sadly, we often forget that we have a fantastic deep loving personal relationship with God in our lives!

When pain and suffering strikes, we start doubting to ourselves - if God is present, why is he letting me go through me? Why all the silence? When we meet other Christians telling us how much God has done for them, we can feel jealous and start longing for some miraculous experience to validate our relationship with God - and when none comes we can lose our confidence in God’s love and become miserable.

When we face a particular temptation, may be to watch something we should not watch or pollute our bodies, we easily give in because we forget that God lives in us and He is personally loving us! If we remembered this truth we would resist many temptations!

John recognises that as long as we are in this world we will experience many doubts and failures ! But his message is simple: Be confident that God loves you because He has proven His love for you publicly in Jesus and He is personally present loving you from the inside! So, when you start doubting his love: turn to this passage of the Bible and reassure yourself of His love.

Love Series :


Copyright © Chola Mukanga 2017
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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 →

Trusting God, By Jerry Bridges (A Review)

Trust is the bedrock of human relations. It is a necessity in a world of finite creatures. We do not know everything and we are powerless over many of the events that occur in our lives. We depend on others to make life work. We cannot afford not to trust. Trust deepens us as individuals by bringing us into mutually satisfying relationships. It enables us to know, love and learn from each other. The tragedy of life is that the one person who we can truly depend on and deserves all our trust, is also the person we struggle to put our trust in. When it comes to trusting God, we are all bankrupt. This poverty is most acute when we go through pain and adversity. Jerry Bridges’ Trusting God aims to help us take a fresh look at God. To help restore our confidence in the goodness and sovereignty of God. This issue is important because though many of us claim to trust God, our thoughts and actions speak otherwise. In our private moments we often ask: how can we trust a God who is supposedly ...
KEEP READING →

Repeaters

Repeaters is directed by rising Canadian director Carl Bessai. It tells the story of three drug addicts - Kyle, Sonia and Mike - who have become friends in the drug rehab. As part of the rehabilitation process they are granted their first day out in the community to "make amends" with loved ones, only to experience failure. Kyle has a young sister who refuses to talk to him. Sonia fails to reconcile with her father lying on the death bed in hospital. Mike is rebuffed by his father in jail. Next morning they wake up to find the day is repeating itself. Everything happening exactly as it was the previous day. And this cycle continues going forward. The film is essentially an exploration of how the three respond to their predicament. On the first two repeats, after satisfying themselves that the repeats are genuine, they  indulge in carefree experiences! Their new immortality or externally inconsequential existence becomes a license to take drugs, rob people and...
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →