God Our Father - Part 13

Understanding how much God loves us is key to strong faith.  Galatians 5:6 states, that faith works or avails things in our life through the avenue of love.  The Amplified translation says it this way, "but only faith activated and energized and expressed and working through love."  Look at those adjectives describing the operation of faith when love is realized, our faith is activated, energized, expressed, and working through love.  Knowing Gods love for us was so important to the Lord that He had the Apostle Paul record a prayer of supplication for the church to pray over itself repeatedly concerning revelation of God's love (Ephesians 3:14-21).  

In part 13 in this series we discussed three aspects of God's love nature found in 1 Cor. 13:7. The three aspects are love bears all things, love believes all things, and love hopes all things.  We know from 1 John 4:8,16 that God is love so God operates this way.  Let's look at each of these characteristics.  

Love bears all things. What does this mean?  Love (God) bears all things, the word bear means to roof over, to cover with silence (endure patiently). God (love) covers us under the shadow of His wings as long as is needed in order to see us through to the end, and in the process of this He doesn’t utter one complaint or disclose us in anyway.  In other words, we are completely safe and protected in God’s love.  He is trustworthy! 

We see this love demonstrated in the ministry of Jesus found in John 8:1-12.  As you read through this account you see that the Lord covered and did not condemn.  He covered the woman that was caught in adultery and protected her from the religious leaders who were looking to destroy Jesus and her.

• v.1-7 - The only person who had the right to stone this woman was Jesus.  But Jesus with these words, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first” was able to cover in order to keep out something that threatens.  With these words Jesus not only brought redemption to this woman but also to the scribes and pharisees. 

• V.8, 9 - In an attempt by the scribes and pharisees to expose the sin of this woman and trap Jesus they ended up exposing their own sin.  But Jesus still through the love of the Father extended redemption to them.  By words filled with love and grace the scribes and pharisees recognized their own sinful condition which gave them a gracious opportunity to repent.     

• V.10-12 - Wow!  “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”  This is the love of God enduring and protecting.  If the religious leaders would have stuck around they would have heard the same message to them. God is in redemption mode.  

Next let's look at "Love believes all things."  What does this mean?  Love (God) believes all things, this is not saying that God is gullible.  The idea here is that love (God) never stops believing the best for a person.  Love intensely desires the very best for every person, this means that God intensely desires the very best for every person.  The Scriptures talk about Jesus being moved with compassion and this has to do with His insides the core of His being longing for the freedom and good of humanity. One translation of this portion of Scripture declares, “it is eager to believe the best.”  

We see the example of this love in the ministry of Jesus in Luke 10:25-37.  This passage of Scripture is the teaching concerning the good Samaritan.  
 

• v.25-33 - We see a familiar word in this series found in verse 33.  The good Samaritan had compassion on the man that was robbed and left for dead.  This is love believing the best, this is God in action through a man submitted to compassion.  All of the other men were more concerned about their own interests.  
• v.34, 35 - This is believing the best for someone.  This man uses his resources to bandage this man, pour oil and wine on his wounds, carry him to safety, put him up in a hospital and then put his own money forth to care for the man until he was healed.  You don't do this unless you believe the best for people.  This is how God loves us.  

Finally, Let's look at "Love hopes all things."  What does this mean?  Love (God) hopes all things or expects in all things.  This again shows the nature of God, He is expecting good concerning people.  He is active in looking for an opening to manifest His truth in the lives of people.  The Amplified translation states that “loves hopes are fadeless under all circumstances.”  With love (God) there is never a hopeless situation.  There is never a situation where love does not have an expectation of good.  

We see the example of this in Jesus ministry found in Mark 5:21-23; 35-36.  This is the account of the raising of Jairus daughter from the dead.  

• v.21-36 This is love (God) that hopes all things.  In this situation it would have been easy to give up hope, but love can change the circumstances no matter what the situation is.  God’s (Love) hopes are fadeless in all circumstances, if we will not give up hope and continue to believe, God will always meet our hope and faith with His resurrection power!

We will be wrapping up this series in the next message but one thing that I have become convinced of is that the men of women of faith who have done great things for the Kingdom of God in previous generations all had strong revelations of God's love for them.  When I read the epistles of Paul and John I am convinced that their success was directly tied to understanding their Fathers love for them.  We can live in that same place through our covenant in Christ Jesus.

James 1:25 - But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.    

In Christ, Pastor Sean