Weekly Devotion: God is Love

“He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” 1 John 4:8

Friend, “God is love”, and because of his great love he desires to have a relationship with the people of his creation and for them to willingly love him in return. God proved his love in the greatest way possible (John 15:13) by sending Jesus Christ, who “laid down his life for us” on the cross of Calvary and three days later rose from the dead bodily, to offer us eternal life.

“Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” 1 John 3:16

The Bible also says that “God is light and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). Now, because God is light, he is holy, and righteous, and just and cannot defile himself by having communion with anything unclean or in darkness. New Jerusalem is described as a place that no “abomination” or anything that “defileth” can enter in; only saved / clean people.

“And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.” Revelation 21:27

Since God is completely sanctified, sin attempts to penetrate his holiness and adulterate his nature. Sin violates God’s essence and stands in direct defiance against him and must be judged. God’s eyes are too pure to “look on iniquity” this is why he forsook Jesus on the cross. Habakkuk 1:13a says, “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity…” So God designed a plan whereby he can restore His image into man, which was lost through sin in the Garden of Eden, by means of salvation. This plan operates by faith on the principle of substitution whereby the just (Jesus Christ) received the penalty for the unjust (you and me).

“For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:” 1 Peter 3:18

A man who didn’t believe in hell once asked me how a loving God could condemn anyone to hell. I answered him that God doesn’t send anyone to hell but rather they choose to go there by rejecting God’s plan of salvation. This plan satisfies God’s attribute of love and light and at the same time does not violate our free will. Have you accepted God’s love? Have you accepted Christ’s substitution, to appease (i.e. make propitiation) God’s attribute of light?

“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” 1 John 4:10

Jesus was the only one good enough to go to heaven, therefore we must be “in him” (2 Corinthians 5:17) if we want to go too. I sincerely invite “whosoever believeth in him” to accept my God of love, so that you don’t “perish”.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16