Are you responding to Christ’s love with steadfast obedience?

-
English: Icon of Jesus Christ
English: Icon of Jesus Christ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love” (John 15:9).

The idea of the Father no longer loving the Son is unimaginable and wholly impossible. The love between the divine persons is unbreakable, eternal, and steadfast. It can no more cease to be than God Himself can cease to exist. Can we even begin to understand the scope, the depth, the height of such love? Yet, this is the love that binds us to Christ. It is His love that secures our salvation. It is His love that maintains us through every situation in life. It is His love that endures to the end and enables us to be inwardly transformed even as He calls us to exert our own wills and obey His commands. This is the love in which we abide and from which we receive our strength and our ability to persevere in holiness.

This abiding love is closely connected with the eternal nature of the Trinity. God Himself is love, and the love shared between the Father and the Son is of an enduring nature, an eternal generation of love that cannot be broken. This is the love from which we are separated when we are in our unredeemed state. But, when we are adopted as children into the family of God, this is the love in which we have a part. As His adopted children, we are unified with Christ, and nothing can separate us from His love. This is the promise expressed in Romans 8: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?.… For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

This love is exactly what Jesus was talking about: “the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.” And what should our response be to such a love? Cold indifference? Rebellion? No! Our response should be sincere, steadfast obedience to the commands of our Lord. Notice once again the intimate connection between love and obedience: the Father loves the Son, the Son loves His church; the Son obeys the Father, the church obeys the Son. As Christ so perfectly modeled, the appropriate reaction to love is humble submission and steadfast obedience, even if it means giving up one’s life.

Meditate on Romans 8:31–39, and if you have the time 1 Corinthians 13. In light of these passages, what solutions do you find to defeat the lack of love that we feel at times? What does it mean to be secure in Christ’s love? Are you responding to Christ’s love with steadfast obedience?

Related articles

Popular posts from this blog

Speaking in tongues for today - Charles Stanley

-
Image
There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. … But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all. … And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues. … Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way - 1 Corinthians 12:4, 7, 28, 30—31 The Lord Jesus Christ had come and gone. The church—newly birthed—was in a transition time. The new covenant was seen as a threat to the Jewish leaders; therefore, there was persecution for those who had chosen to follow Christ. The new religion, in its infant stages, had no Bible, few leaders, and absolutely no support from the government. Astounding that it survived, isn’t it?  How in the world did it survive with so little going for it? Power. Not just a force, but mighty, visible power. Th...
Read more

What is the glory (kabod) of God?

-
Image
2 CORINTHIANS 4:17 "This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison." Scripture places a high value on God 's glory, and it is not hard to figure out why. Since the inherent glory of the Lord is something that He will not share with others (Isa. 42:8), we know that His glory is something that He prizes highly; indeed, He prizes it more highly than anything else. We should, therefore, set the glory of God as the goal and overarching emphasis of our lives. Whatever we lose for the sake of making the Lord's glory known will be worth it when we see the dazzling light and beauty of; the divine glory (28:5; Rev. 21:23). Glory has to do with light and beauty, but those aspects do not sum up what the Bible means when it speaks of the glory of God. Interestingly, the Hebrew word kabod , which is translated into English as "glory," has the root meaning of "weight" or "heaviness....
Read more

The Holy Spirit causes us to cry out: Abba, Father

-
Image
Pentecostés. Óleo sobre lienzo, 275 × 127 cm. Madrid, Museo del Prado. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) To bring out the same truth in another way, Paul says God sent Jesus (as a Man) to live under the Law in order “to redeem those under law, that we [Jews and Gentiles ] might receive the full rights [adoption] of sons” ( Galatians 4:5).  By “full rights” or “adoption” he means entering into the privileges and responsibilities of sonship. He uses it also of the sonship of Israel (Romans 9:4). Galatians 4:1, 2 indicate that the son and heir of a wealthy family in Paul’s day would be treated as a slave until he became of age.  Then he would receive the adoption, that is, all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities that belonged to an adult member of that family. Adoption was also used in the modern sense, so that Gentiles who were not sons of Abraham became true heirs, true sons of God , by faith.  Jesus died, not just to save us from the fires of hell, bu...
Read more