“GOD IS LOVE!”

1 John 4:7-12                                                   (ESV)

“7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from GOD, and whoever loves has been born of GOD and knows GOD.

8 Anyone who does not love does not know GOD, because “GOD IS LOVE”.

9 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.

10 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.

11 Beloved, if GOD so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

12 No one has ever seen GOD; if we love one another, GOD abides in us and HIS love is perfected in us.”

One of the most difficult lessons I was experienced in my youth was seeing a used car for sale at a friend’s business and almost immediately falling in “LOVE” with the vehicle.  It wasn’t the car of my dreams.  It wasn’t the car I just had to have.  But my “buying temperature” was high and my carnal self convinced me that I had to have it.  Bottom line is that I couldn’t arrange financing and was unable to get the car.  My grandfather wouldn’t co-sign for the vehicle and so it had to walk away.  My grandfather had the money, but I didn’t!  Earning the money before I spent it was being taught at a very young age.  If only I could have understood the “LOVE” and gravity behind his actions?!?

Regardless of what some teach, sometimes GOD has allow us to be exposed to difficulties to open our EYES to TRUTHS that we need to SEE!  We THINK we really need to have something or someone in our lives, only later to SEE that thing or person was caustic to what we were CALLED to be.  We are CALLED to walk by FAITH (2 Corinthians 5:7), not by what we want!  

Teaching me that I needed to do more than WANT something for me to sacrifice other desires I order to have it was something that took me years to learn, but it was taught to me most of my life.  GOD works in us “for HIS OWN purpose and grace” (1 Timothy 1:9), not so we can have everything on our wish list.  GOD demonstrated HIS “LOVE” for us in that WHILE WE WERE STILL SINNERS, CHRIST DIED for us (Romans 5:8)!  What more could HE do for a wretch like that me???  HIS “LOVE”, much like me grandfathers “LOVE”, does NOT always give us what we want, but what we need to Glorify HIM!!!  “GOD IS LOVE”!!!