Category: Love of God

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The Atmosphere of Heaven

Today is St. Valentine’s Day, when lovers exchange gifts, flowers and greeting cards to express affection for each other. It is named in honor of a 3rd century martyr who became the patron saint of lovers.

Human beings are capable of love because we are created in the image of God. God is love. He wants his love to be demonstrated in our lives.

For the past few weeks I have been examining what is believed to be the greatest written treatise on love, 1 Corinthians 13. Even secular anthologies of English literature include this “love chapter” from the Bible because of its beauty and eloquence. It is indeed great literature.

However, this biblical passage is about more than romantic love, friendship, or any other natural affection. What it describes is a supernatural, self-giving love which has a profoundly Christian meaning.

Love is the governing principle of heaven. God’s love is to be the very atmosphere in which we live as Christians. John Stott illustrated it this way. “Take a fish as an obvious example. God created fish to live and thrive in water, whether salt or fresh. Gills are adapted to absorb oxygen from water, so water is the element in which a fish finds its identity, its ‘fishness,’ its freedom. It finds itself in the element for which it was created: water. It is limited to water, but in that limitation is liberty.

“Suppose you had a little tropical fish in one of those old-fashioned spherical goldfish bowls. Suppose that little fish swam round and round his blessed little bowl until its frustration became unbearable. The fish decided to make a bid for freedom and leap out of the bowl. If it landed in a pond in your backyard, it would increase its freedom because there would be more water to swim in. But if it landed on the concrete or on the carpet, then its bid for freedom would spell death.

“If fish were meant for water, what are human beings made for?  . . . What is the element in which human beings find themselves, as water is the element in which a fish finds itself?

“I don’t hesitate to say that according to scripture, the answer is love. Human beings are made for love because God is love. When he created us in his own image, he gave us the capacity to love and to be loved. So human beings find their destiny in loving God and in loving their neighbors.”

1 Corinthians 13:8 says, “Love never fails.” This is because God never fails. Love is eternal because God is eternal. He expressed his love for us in sending his Son to die for our sins to purchase eternal salvation for us (Romans 5:8; John 3:16). “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God” (1 John 3:1). Having received the love of God, we are called to share the love of God. This is how we bring the atmosphere of heaven to earth.

A young woman named Michelle lived in a northern city in the US. She decided to move into a rough neighborhood to try to help people living in poverty. She started tutoring kids and getting involved with their families. Some of her church friends heard about what she was doing and started asking what those families needed.

Michelle’s friends made lists of the needs and circulated them until they found people who could meet those tangible needs. It worked like an underground love network. When I heard about this they were servicing 430 families in the name of Christ and the network was growing.

Love brings the atmosphere of heaven to earth. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Pastor Randy Faulkner

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Love in Action

Years ago a young woman volunteered to be a missionary in Mexico. Her heart was filled with love for the people she served there. In fact, she made a notation in the margin of her Bible next to the love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13. She wrote: “Love for the Mexicans.”

Whenever she read 1 Corinthians 13, she read it this way: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love for the Mexicans, I am become as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.” Her love for the people of Mexico enabled her to win many of them to Jesus Christ.

After years of unselfish service she became gravely ill. Not long before her death, her Mexican friends gathered tearfully around her sickbed to say farewell. Before she died, she asked them not to bring flowers to her funeral, but instead to bring Bibles to give away.

They did this. Bibles and New Testaments were stacked around her casket. Later her friends gave them to those who did not have a copy of the word of God. Even after her death her witness was carried on in the lives of the people she had loved to the Lord.

The love described in 1 Corinthians 13 is not natural, it is supernatural. Romans 5:5 says it is only possible “because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given us.” The apostle John wrote, “This is the message you heard from the beginning: we should love one another” ( 1 John 3:11). Love is one of the main evidences that a person is a real Christian (1 John 3:14).

1 Corinthians 13 is majestic in its poetic expression. It is also convicting in its application. It describes what family life, church life, and community life can be when people put love into action.

The priority of love (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)

Without love, eloquence becomes dissonance. The languages of earth and heaven spoken without love, would sound like a clanging discord. Spiritual gifts, as desirable as they are, are useless without love. Even unselfish acts, without loving motives, are unprofitable.

The practice of love (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

Here is the clearest description of love to be found anywhere. This is love in action. We would recognize real love if we saw it. And we have seen it in the life of our Lord Jesus. These verses describe Jesus and any who would live as he lived.

One who acts in a loving way will be slow to anger (James 1:19) and gracious. Loving persons will not have exaggerated opinions of themselves. Love produces actions that are appropriate, tactful, above reproach. Love is not selfish. It is not easily offended or irritable. Love forgives and does not keep score of wrongs.

Loving actions are always consistent with truth and justice (1 John 3:17-18). Love takes no pleasure in wrong. Love suppresses evil reports and gossip. It always has an ear for good  words. It believes the best about other people.  Love causes one to be optimistic and courageous.

The permanence of love (1 Corinthians 13:8-9)

Paul is telling his readers that prophecies, tongues and knowledge as special manifestations will soon pass away. Love will endure forever.

The presence of love (1 Corinthians 13:10-12)

“When perfection comes” may refer to the eternal state when the Lord makes “all things new” (Revelation 21:5) and “the imperfect disappears.” The New Testament often uses the word “perfect” to refer to the second coming of Jesus Christ. This life is like childhood. Eternity with Christ is like maturity. This life is like a first century mirror of polished metal, an imperfect reflection. But in eternity we shall see Christ himself, the perfect embodiment of love, “face to face,” and enjoy his presence forever.

Pastor Randy Faulkner

 

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Thinking About the Trinity

I have been thinking about the Trinity. Christians believe that God is eternally self-existent in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

One of the best proofs of this is love. Love requires a giver and a recipient. It is relational. It is reciprocal, Love has no meaning otherwise.

The New Testament teaches that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). God is love in his very essence. To deny that God is three persons in one divine being, is to deny that God is love. In eternity past, before the creation of the world, if he was only one person, he could not love.

From eternity to eternity, the Father loves the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Son loves the Father and the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit loves the Father and the Son, in a mutual, self-giving reciprocity. This is how the Son glorifies the Father, the Spirit glorifies the Son, and the Father glorifies both the Son and the Spirit.

Creation was an act of self-giving love. God needed nothing outside of himself to be complete and completely satisfied. But in extravagant love he created the universe and created human beings to experience his love.

Unfortunately, the disobedience of the human race resulted in alienation, death and judgment. According to the opening chapters of the Bible, humans became self-centered instead of loving their creator, and the relationship was spoiled by sin. The self-centeredness which plagues the human condition is the opposite of the love of God.

Fortunately, God provided a way back into his love through his Son. Jesus came into the world to put divine love on display in the ultimate act of unselfishness. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Those who believe in him become part of a new God-centered community in which it is possible for us to love one another as he has loved us. Just as the members of the Trinity pour love into one another, so the Holy Spirit enables the new community of Christ to live in love for one another.

I have been thinking about the Trinity. One of the strongest evidences for the Trinity is the love of God.

Pastor Randy Faulkner

 

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The Certainty of God’s Love

The past year has been stressful and uncertain for many Americans. New variants of the COVID-19 virus still threaten the population. A significant percentage of people remain suspicious and fearful of the vaccine. We hear sad reports of young people who are depressed and suicidal. Businesses have closed for good. Millions of people have lost their jobs.

In these uncertain times, I want to turn readers’ attention to themes and promises of which we may be certain. It is possible to maintain a sense of calm confidence in the middle of this perfect storm of economic disruption, health crises, and social change.

This is not escapism or a state of denial. The problems are real. But so are the promises of God. It is by keeping our focus on him that we maintain stability as we live in this present world in this present time.

This leads me to recommend the writings of the apostle John. John is an apostle of certainty. {Count the number of times he repeats the word “know” in his first letter.) In 1 John 4:7-21, the knowledge of God leads to the certainty of the love of God for us. In spite of everything, we may be sure of God’s love.

God’s love is on display. God’s nature is love. God is the source of love, the essence of love. “Love comes from God” (1 John 4:7). “God is love” (1 John 4:8). The Holy Trinity is a divine inter-relationship of eternal love. This infinite, glorious and loving God is great, but not remote. He has shared his love with us human beings living on this tiny planet. He “showed his love among us” ( 1 John 4:9).

John circles back to Jesus Christ. God showed his love among us when he “sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Sin results in death and condemnation. Jesus’ sacrificial death results in life for those who believe in him. This is God’s gift of love.

John can write with confidence about this because he was an eyewitness to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. “We  have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14). The Christian faith rests on objective facts which have been verified by the sensory experience of those who were there. These facts are passed along to us by the Lord’s apostles.

He goes further. He says that if we accept this objective testimony about Jesus, God in his grace will send his Holy Spirit to confirm it to us as a subjective witness. “This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: he has given us of his Spirit” (1 John 4:13). “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God” (1 John 4:15).

This acknowledgement of Jesus is a formal declaration of faith in him. It happens when one says “yes” to the gospel. “This is what I believe.” It is reaffirmed in water baptism as a confession of one’s faith in Christ. It happens again when a Christian explains the faith to another person. In the words of the apostle, it is the declaration that Jesus is “the Savior of the world.” It is the acknowledgement “that Jesus is the Son of God”  and that God sent him (1 John 4:14).

These facts prove God’s love. His love is reliable. “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us” ( 1 John 4:16). Reliance upon God’s love gives us stability. It anchors us. It completes us. “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us” (1 John 4:12). “This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment” ( 1 John 4:17).

God’s love is the life-force working within individual believers and through the Christian community. It is the vitality of the church. We are called to be loving because God is loving. “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11). “No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us” (1 John 4:12).

The invisible God is made visible to a watching world when Christians love one another. Frederick F. Bruce wrote, “The love of God displayed in his people is the strongest apologetic that God has in the world.” It is the love of God, costly love, practical love, visible love, serving love, forgiving love, which makes the gospel believable to our neighbors.

“God is love” (1 John 4:16). This is a great certainty for uncertain times.

Pastor Randy Faulkner