Amazing Love

Amazing Love
Words of Faith 5-31-24
Dr. Jeffrey D. Hoy © 2024
Jeff.Hoy@faithfellowshipweb.com
Faith Fellowship Church - Melbourne, FL
www.faithfellowshipweb.com
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1 John 4
[7] Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. [8] Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. [9] This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. [10] This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. [11] Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. [12] No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

Love. The world sings about it. Poets write about it. Talk shows jabber about it. Yet, somehow, it eludes us. Just what is it? John says it is the defining mark of a Christian believer. Without it, you ain't got God (rough Greek translation). So, we need to have some idea of what this love is about.
John is really saying the same thing that Paul did. Love is a fruit of the Spirit of God (Galatians 5:22). Love is evident if you have God in your life. Love will be manifest. But this Biblical "love" is probably quite different from what the world suggests on the average sitcom or romantic comedy. In the Bible, Love is not a feeling. Love is not an emotion. Love is not a hormonal response. So what is it?
There is a famous saying in Christian circles that "Love is a Decision." True. But this begs the question: "What is the decision?" There may be many views on that, but I believe in simplest terms, Biblical love is the decision to value a person in the same way that God does. The Bible calls us to choose to love God, others, and ourselves. We are to value people the way God does. (And we are a people.)
God valued every single soul to the extent that He gave His only Son for that single soul. No matter how sinful or lost, Jesus died for that person not based on their merit but simply because God "so loved." Choosing to value a human being is Biblical "love." It has nothing to do with the relative "worth" of the person or how deserving a person is. It has everything to do with the nature and character of God.
Why, then, do we love? We "love" and value that person because God first loved us. His love causes us to be born of God and become capable of His love. Is that easy? If I depend upon my own love, it will be impossible. My love is limited to what I think people deserve. John says, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us. If I trust God to love and value that person through me, He will do so. He will make that complete.
God has already made His definitive value judgment about that person in the atoning death of His Son. God does not ask us to announce: "God might love you... if you will be good..."
Instead, we are to announce the Good News: "Centuries before you were even born, God loved you enough to die for you." That is the amazing love expressed in amazing grace.

So how about it? Do you see that reflection in your monitor? Jesus died for that person. And guess what? Every person you meet today, every criminal you see on television, every clerk in every store, every driver on the road, every boss and every employee, every student and every teacher, JESUS DIED FOR THEM. Value them in the same way.

Lord, give me Your eyes today, Your ears, and Your heart to see the world You died for all around me. In Jesus' name, Amen.

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© Jeffrey D. Hoy 2024
Dr. Jeffrey D. Hoy - Faith Fellowship Church (EFCA)
2820 Business Center Blvd.
Melbourne, Florida 32940 (321)-259-7200
Jeff.Hoy@faithfellowshipweb.com
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The Words of Faith devotion is published five days a week by E-mail, excluding Federal holidays. Please feel free to forward this devotion to a friend who might be blessed by this devotion. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture is quoted from the New International Version (R) of The Holy Bible. Copyright (c) 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Words of Faith (c) 1997, 2024 Jeffrey D. Hoy. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to forward this copyrighted material or use portions of it with appropriate notation of the source for non-profit purposes.