1. Have you ever stopped to consider how God demonstrates His love to us? Most people assume that God loves us just because He created us, but there is much more evidence. God’s love involved a supreme sacrifice in His Son, Jesus Christ. It must have grieved God to offer His Son to be whipped, beaten and crucified as a common criminal, but His love allowed it to happen.
Most of us have a hard time giving away something free to even our best friends. Only in the rarest of occasions do we hear of someone who sacrifices their life to save another – talk less of doing it for one’s enemies. Yet, His free gift of eternal salvation was given for the sake of the sins of whole world.
His love was given to people who were helplessly lost. His love continues to be offered to melt the hearts of the proud, the intellectual or the worst of sinners. Christ did not just give up his time, energy or resources, but He gave His life. As the popular songs says, “Oh How He loves you and me. He gave His life. What more could He give. Oh, how He loves you and me!”
Application: Trust the Lord to help you give people a greater appreciation for way the love of God melts hearts and draws all people to yield themselves to His influence.
2. Paul taught the Romans that the love of God is demonstrated through history, through His word and in the life of Christ. Love is a verb. Christ’s love involved giving. How sad is it when you have to depend on people whose love is conditioned upon feelings, circumstances or personal favor.
If you want to begin to gain a richer appreciation for love – study the life of Christ in the scripture and history. Stop trying to find love just through TV’s entertainment programs. Never has anyone ever come close to showing the breadth, length, height or depth of Christ’s love. His love is higher than the greatest accomplishment. His love is broader than the breadth of man’s greatest thoughts. His love is longer than the most enduring institution or nation. His love reaches deeper than the depths of debauchery. Like the hymn writer wrote,
Song: “O the Deep, deep love of Jesus, vast unmeasured, boundless and free. Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me. Underneath me, all around me. Is the current of Thy love. Leading onward, leading homeward. To my glorious rest above.”
Application: Learn to let the love of Christ wash over you in all of its fullness so you can enrich the lives of others.
3. Paul taught the Romans that Christ’s love is for those who recognize they are in need. The great apostle knew that unless people acknowledge their weakness in respect to sin, death and judgment they will miss out on the love of God in Christ. How tragic it is when the strong, rich or self-sufficient decide to disregard the love of Christ by failing to place saving faith in Him. Paul once wrote,
“Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are so that no one may boast before him.” (I Cor. 1:26-29)
Consistently, churches that put emphasis on the fields that are ripe for the harvest yield the greatest spiritual fruit.
It may require an AWANA program for the children, the hiring of an evangelistic youth minister for your young people or a Pastor of visitation to do evangelism explosion in your community. Do whatever it takes to reach those who are hungering and thirsting for the solutions found through the love of Christ.
Application: Ask the Lord to lead you to those who are willing to recognize their need for the love of God in Christ.
4. Paul taught the Romans that Christ’s love reaches even to the indifferent. His love has a way of breaking down the barriers and diffusing through the filters of everyone’s mind. Christ even died for those who take every good thing He has done for granted. His love is able to penetrate the complacent, apathetic and cold hearted individual. The love of Christ is able to convince the most self-satisfied person that they are in need of a Savior.
His love is given not for the deserving, but for the undeserving; not just for His friends, but for His enemies; not for the pious but for those who are of ungodly; not for the just but for the unjust; not for the good but for those who recognize they are lost without Christ.
Illustration: Remember the words of the famous Hymn, “Jesus Never Fails”. “Earthly friends may prove untrue. Doubts and fears assail. One still love and cares for you. Jesus never fails. Jesus never fails. Jesus never fails. Heaven and earth may pass away, but Jesus never fails.
Application: Trust the Lord to help you be used to win many people to Christ by being a channel of His unfailing love to others. By this will all men know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. (John 13:34,35)
