The Lord is awe-inspiring, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in 1 John 4:13-16a,
“We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
This is such a rich passage with so much contained in it. In just three and a half verses John tells us, yet again, how we can know we are a child if God (God has given us his Spirit), that within the Trinity the Father has sent his Son for us as the Savior, that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the whole world (not just a select few – although we learn only those who will embrace him in faith by acknowledging he is the Son of God will be saved from God’s judgment), that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that he dwells in believers and that we know of the love of God and rely on it. As is typical of John he speaks of profound truths in few words. The depth and complexity of theology that John presents in his writings is enormous. Pregnant with the deep things of the faith his writings leave us with a mountain of truth to digest.
What strikes me this morning is his comment that we know and rely on the love God has for us. We know he loves us and has demonstrated this by sending his Son to us as our Savior from his own judgment for our sins. But John goes on to say that we rely on the love of God. Just how reliable is the love of God? What does that mean and what kind of confidence and assurance does it provide us as we look to the future?
This morning I listened to Max McLean recite Psalm 136. Each of the 26 verses of this psalm end with the stanza “His love endures forever.” As I listened to it I couldn’t help but think that our God takes particular effort to ensure we know of his love and to take confidence it. God’s love will never shrink, never fade. He will love us as much at the end of our lives as he has at any time. He will love us just as much ten thousand years into the resurrection as he does today. His love never wavers, it is not based on anything we do, it is not performance based, and it does not rely on me. It relies on God alone and he never changes.
Truly his love endures forever! We can take great confidence and rely entirely on it!!
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your theme of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We’d love to hear from you!
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