| February is sometimes called the “month of love.” Valentine’s Day is right in the middle of the month, and grocery stores are packed with all manner of heart-shaped chocolates and other candy. We then focus on love, most especially the romantic love between husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend. Now, that can be helpful and good in its proper place. It’s good to show that you love your spouse. I pray that you do that every day, not just on Valentine’s Day! For this “month of love,” though, I would like to direct your attention to a different loving relationship. While the world focuses so much on how we love each other, let’s pause and remember how God shows His love for us.
The Bible is crystal clear on this. God shows His love for us in Christ. One of the most famous verses in the Bible, John 3:16, the first verse I want to highlight, tells us this. “For God so loved the world” means “God loved the world in this way.” In what way did He love the world? By giving His only Son, Jesus Christ, to die and rise again for the forgiveness of sins. And the rest of the verse tells us that anyone who believes in Jesus will not perish, but have eternal life. They will not bear the consequences of their sins, because they have been taken and paid for by Christ. Now you who believe in Jesus will not die, but instead have eternal life with Him in the new heavens and new earth when He returns. What good news! What great love God the Father has shown to you and I! The second verse I want to highlight is one of my personal favorite verses, Romans 5:8. It reads “But God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Paul is saying here that God clearly shows His love for us, the world, by having Christ die for us sinners. He didn’t wait to show us His love until we cleaned ourselves up or stopped sinning. No, God loved us while we were still sinners, and He showed that love by sending Jesus to die and rise again for our sins. Once again, what wondrous love the Father has shown to us!
God also shows His love and care for us in giving us our daily bread. He makes the sun rise and sends the rain on the just and the unjust alike (Matthew 5:5), and gives us all our food in due season (Psalm 145:15). He is our good and gracious Father who loves to provide for us! He uses our neighbors at the grocery store, the bakery, our favorite restaurants, the hardware store, various retail stores to provide us with food, water, clothes, and tools needed to fix our shelters. He uses our neighbors who work in construction, law enforcement, and medical fields to provide us with shelter, order, and medical care. Through all of this, God shows His love and care for us through that provision for our physical needs, and He shows His love most clearly in providing for our spiritual needs in Jesus.
So then, if (or when) you are tempted to question what God thinks about you, look to Jesus. Jesus Christ on the cross is the most clear demonstration of God’s love for you. You can also certainly find some comfort in the ways God has provided for you, but once again, the clearest demonstration of God’s love for you is found in Christ, not just material blessings. In your troubles and doubts, look there, not to your stuff. If (or when) you begin to think that God doesn’t love you, or can’t love you, look to the cross and see exactly what God thinks of you and your sin. It’s an ugly, very unromantic picture, but it is also a comforting one. It brings comfort because next to the ugliness of sin, you see the love of God. You see it in God’s only Son, hung there for you, so that you could be saved. As we sing in the beloved hymn, “how deep the Father’s love for us…that He should give His only Son to make a wretch His treasure.” During this “month of love,” remember the deep love God your Father has shown you in Jesus Christ, your Savior, and be blessed and comforted by it.
In Christ, Pastor Michael Onstad
|
