How do you see "The Love of God?"

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Permalink Reply by Colby on October 12, 2013 at 9:47pm

The story you shared with us from John's Gospel is about the healing of prejudice as much as it is about curing a man born blind.  It's ironic that the blind man is the only one who finally sees Jesus for who he is.  The disciples don't because their prejudice has blinded them.  They ask, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?"  They had grown up steeped in this prejudice.  But the healing here shows that God doesn't share such prejudice.  

 

What about our blindness?  What prejudices about God or about other people make us blind?  How have we become blind to what God's doing in our life and in the world?  What healing do we need?  Those questions strike at the heart of our faith, do they not?

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Permalink Reply by a servant (Chris) on October 13, 2013 at 8:49am

Colby

Yes those questions do strike to the heart.  Our terminology may be different yet, I think our questions are similar.  I think we must ask ourselves these questions.  And, ask others as we are lead by The Spirit to do so.  I myself as I shared understand the need for healing.  I have shared before, I have learned much through my pain.  Yet, when I looked at these verses, I have to consider am I that blind man who just needs to wait on Our Lord to be Glorified in my Healing, on His Time not my own.  

As I also look at your questions, how often do we Pray that our eyes become flooded with The Truth about our Faith and Love for Jesus.  And, the rest of our Family. 

Love in Christ

Chris

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Permalink Reply by Colby on October 13, 2013 at 12:40pm

Chris,
The Holy Spirit, like a wind that sweeps through our lives, is the presence of God in our midst, leading and guiding us, healing us, sanctifying us, and conforming us to the image of Christ.  John's Farewell Discourse contains many rich complexities, but nothing so profoundly simple as the promise that by action of the Holy Spirit, God will remain with us; will abide in us. And that we are invited to reciprocate and abide with him.
Colby

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Permalink Reply by Carla on October 12, 2013 at 10:32pm

Chris,

 

In this life, to some degree, we all experience pain and suffering.  We may look at another person's life and say something like 'Their life looks so nice, pain free... no trials... I wish I had a life like that'

 

But we don't know that we want a life like that.. We don't know that we really want their life. We don't know what they have been through to get where they are.

 

I truly believe that God prepares each one of us to handle different circumstances according to what those circumstances prepare us for.  Each of these things in our lives prepare us to handle the next thing.  Our purpose is to bring God Glory.

If you needed to reach the top of a high building, and the only way up is a ladder.... but you didn't have enough rungs  on your ladder, would it be safe to climb?

Each thing we go through builds another rung for us to climb on to so that we will reach the top.  Can we skip a rung?  Have you ever climbed a ladder and tried to skip a rung?  It doesn't work.

The more rungs we have on our ladder, the higher we climb...

 

We don't want less ladder rungs... We want strength, assurance and peace for the journey.

 

How do I see the Love of God?

I see the Love of God in Jesus Christ ...His Son, Our Saviour.

I see the Love of God in sacrificial love in God's Family here on earth.

I see the Love of God as people share their testimony.

I see the Love of God in compassion and mercy as others display it.

I see the Love of God in forgiveness.

I see the Love of God in the Christians assurance.

 

John Macarthur writes this:

"Love is the heart of the Christian witness.  Nobody can see God loving since His love is invisible.  Jesus no longer is in the world to manifest the Love of God.  The only demonstration of God's love in this age is the church.  That testimony is critical.  John's argument in 1 John 4:7-12 can be summed up as: love originated with God, was manifested in His Son, and demonstrated in His people."

 

Blessings, Carla

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Permalink Reply by a servant (Chris) on October 13, 2013 at 8:40am

Carla

MY Sister you always share those things that are edify, as The Word tells us to.  I am always Blessed by what you share.  Thanks you so very much.

Love in Christ

Chris

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Permalink Reply by Carla on October 13, 2013 at 9:01am

Bless you Chris.

 

By the way, Do you know what your name means?

 

It means to 'Bear Christ'  It is of Greek origin.

To 'bear' means to carry, transmit or spread.

 

Therefore, the meaning of your name is to carry, transmit and spread Christ.

What a beautiful name.

 

Blessings, Carla

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Permalink Reply by a servant (Chris) on October 13, 2013 at 9:09am

Carla

Yes I did.  But Bless you for explaining it so Kind and Beautifully.  I am compelled to say by your words You do the same, in all of what you share.

Love ya Sis 

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Permalink Reply by Carla on October 13, 2013 at 9:24am

My older son is named 'Logan'.  My husband named him.

At the moment he was born he looked like a 'Chris' to me, and I said.. He should be called Chris.  But hubby wanted to name him Logan... so his name is still Logan.

However, at the birth of our second son I got to name him.. His name is 'Joshua' which means 'God is Salvation'.  His middle name is 'Michael' which means 'who is like God'....

 

What's interesting is that I had both of my children before I was saved, and named Joshua 'Joshua Michael' before knowing the Lord, and not knowing the names or what they meant.

Joshua is a bold passionate boy who is on fire for God and he has many gifts.

Logan is a much quieter boy with many struggles, but is slowly finding his way.

...sorry for going off topic...  :-)

Blessings, Carla

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Permalink Reply by a servant (Chris) on October 13, 2013 at 9:34am

Arnette who is my second wife, however helped me raise my 5 and her 3.  We have two Joshuas.  Mine is named Joshua Caleb and it Fits him to a tee.  

No need for ...sorry for going off topic...  :-) I think we grow stronger when we know more about one another.

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Permalink Reply by Colby on October 13, 2013 at 12:36pm

Carla,

MacArthur's words ring true and align with the Scriptures.  Of all the ways God could chose to deal with us, God chooses love.  That’s what kind of God this is.  He loves us so much that he sent Jesus to die on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins so that we might be reconciled with him.  And that’s the kind of God who makes another claim on us: “I will be your God and you will be my people.”  How we live, who we are, what we become, will tell how we respond to that claim.

Colby

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Permalink Reply by Carla on October 13, 2013 at 12:38pm

Amen Colby.  God is Awesome and Beautiful and Lovely in very way..  We want the world to know.  :-)

 

Blessings, Carla

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Permalink Reply by Colby on October 13, 2013 at 12:13pm

We search for love; we search for wealth; we search for security.  We humans live with the continued delusion that the very meaning of life can be searched out and learned. 

 

God's love for us is stronger and deeper than anything we could imagine.  I do not understand why God loves and then forgives me my many sins and I do not understand why God loves you and forgives you your sins. And I certainly do not understand why God loves this world God has created. This side of heaven we will never fully understand that. But God does love me as God loves you. And God loves this world. We know that because God became flesh in this world in the person of Jesus. God has graced us in the birth of Jesus. 

 

“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life,”  according to the Gospel of John (3:16).  It continues, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him”  (3:17).

 

God loves us and can't bear to see us separated from God and from one another. So Jesus came that we might be reconciled with God.  To do that, he had to go the cross.  The cross of Jesus tells us that God forgives us and the resurrection of Jesus tells us that God loves us, and not just for a little while, but eternally. 

 

God’s love for us is already incar­nate in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. God’s love for us is already manifested.  As St Paul says in Romans, “God proves his love for us; for while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  (Rom 5:8)

 

Jesus clearly connects our love for God to our love for our neighbor.  John asks: "How can we say we love God, whom we’ve not seen, when we don’t love our neighbor, who we have seen?"   (1 Jn 4:20)  Loving God then comes only as we love our neighbor. 

 

Paul, in his letter to the Church at Rome, asks:  Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.  (Rom 8:35-39)

 

Let us pray that all--like the man blind since birth who was given sight by Jesus (Jn 9:1-3)--will be cured of their spiritual blindness and hard-heartedness; that they will come to see, know, embrace, be overcome by, be infused to overflowing with, and freely share the abundant love of God with others.

 

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