We live in a world of hardcore opposites. Popular thinking about Christ has led to songs that focus only on His love for us, saying that He chose us because we are beautiful and amazing and special. But even more popular thinking crosses Christ out of the entire sphere of living, denying His existence (let alone His love for us).
Which one is right?
You’re shaking your head at the latter option. Not having Christ in our lives isn’t the way to go, definitely. But are we really to elevate His love for us, forgetting about his majesty and glory and our responsibility to fear Him?
Yes, Jesus loves us. Yes, He chose us. But it’s not because of us.
– Jesus loves me –
Salvation is so amazing because it’s undeserved. We were helpless without God. He chose us because of His character, not ours. His loveliness, not ours (because there is none in us).
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.” Ephesians 2:4-5
“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” 1 John 4:9-11
An understanding of this concept is imperative because, if we believe we ought to be loved, we won’t see Christ for who He is. We won’t see God for who He is.
The truth is, all of us were THIS close to an eternity in Hell. God saved us; He delivered us, redeemed our soul.
The song isn’t “Jesus loves me this I know, For we all deserved it so.”
However, we are beloved. I chose that name for our blog/e-magazine because that was a huge concept to me this summer.
All other love will fail. People will fail; circumstances will break our hearts. The only love that will never disappoint us, never leave us, never wreck our hearts: that love is God’s love.
Romans 8 tell us . . .
- SO MUCH that He didn’t even spare His own Son
- (So why would He mess up our life purposely?)
- SO MUCH that God justified us (declared us without sin)
- SO MUCH THAT even now Christ is interceding us
- SO MUCH THAT nothing can separate us from the love of Christ; not the heartaches of life, distresses, persecution, needs, poverty, danger, or war.
- SO MUCH THAT these also can’t separate us from God’s love (unless we were still uncertain after the previous list): the possibility of death, a terrifying/unknown future, evil authorities, spiritual powers surrounding us (good and bad), things that are happening to you right now, the thing that will happen to you in the future; even your location doesn’t matter.
- God is on our side // WE DON’T HAVE TO FEAR
- God will make us MORE THAN conquerors // WE HAVE GUARANTEED VICTORY
So yes. God’s love is important. In fact, it’s His most mentioned characteristic. But with that, we must remember His glory; His power; His judgment on mankind. We must remember our place; that, if He hadn’t called us to Himself, we’d still be lost.
He loved us first. <3
