Love First and Love Sacrificially – Bible Study notes from 10-FEB-2018

Love First and Love Sacrificially – Bible Study notes from 10-FEB-2018

⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹ Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.¹³ This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. ¹⁶ And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. ¹⁷ This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.¹⁹ We love because he first loved us. ²⁰ Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. ²¹ And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
               1 John 4:9-21 (NIV)
           

Loving others unconditionally … it’s been my goal since first receiving Jesus as Savior and Lord in my teen years.  However, I have often struggled with this. Struggling not just with doing it but telling others about it and teaching about it.  As a young mother I once asked someone, “Is it right to teach my children about unconditional love when they will not encounter it here on earth? Does this set them up to be disappointed by me and others when we don’t live up to this standard?”

Over the years I have repeatedly pondered this, and repeatedly landed on this truth. That God loves US unconditionally and calls His children to imitate Him and strive to do love as He love. So, regardless of my concerns, I am compelled by His love to keep loving … loving God first and loving others … and to keep learning what love is and how to love like God does (well really, like He IS).

This morning, as I have contemplated the need to be in intimate love relationship with God, making that my first and central priority.  I am also reminded that has already shown me how to love others, in spite of my fear of failure, my fear of not loving well enough, or in a way that is receivable. His perfect love is drives out my fear, and shows the way. This is not easy, but the burden is light when we learn from Him and are guided by His yoke, His ways, His Words, and His Love.

This is love:

·        LOVE FIRST: (before the person is lovable, before they like you, before you “like” them or their behavior, we are to love them first). How do we do this?  What does that look like? Is this foolishly dangerous? Hmmm… Well my example is Christ Jesus.

o   He came to seek his own and others. He didn’t’ demand an audience but sought connection, and at times waited for the perfect time to connect even with just one person. The gospel accounts are full of examples of this. He also didn’t wait for an invitation, but His arrival was foretold and announced. Even with Zacchaeus, who was drawn and curious but not yet brave enough to get too close, Jesus called him out and invited Himself into Zacchaeus home and life. This “balance” (for lack of a better word) between boldness and humility is the example I am to follow. Not shrinking back, but not self-seeking either, and yet still intentionally pursuing connection even before the person has things figured out. Not watering down the truth but speaking truth with grace, love, and compassion. We love others by seeking and initiating connections, not only returning love to those who show us love and kindness, but loving others first and for the sake of love alone. Our love for others is to be an outflow of the love dwells in us for all people, which is the result of the filling upon filling of God’s love into us, changing us and forming us and empowering us to love others FIRST, like He did for us.

·        LOVE SACRIFICIALLY: Jesus loved sacrificially … to the ultimate sacrifice … the Word says death on a cross. Sometimes we only think of the physical aspect of that, which was horrendous in itself, but so much more is being communicated when “death on a cross” is said. This type of death was for heinous wrong doing. So we have to remember the horror of a perfect sinless God, taking on sin (OUR sins). In the courtroom of Heaven, Jesus took full responsibility for the wages of our sins, the rightfully earned returns, result or effect of us doing wrong against His righteous pure ways. There is no sin in Him, and the light can have part with no darkness, and yet Jesus by death on a cross took upon Himself our darkness, our sins, and fully became our propitiation (“by his becoming our substitute and assuming our obligations he expiated our guilt, covered it, by the vicarious punishment which he endured.” [1]). My point by looking closely and deeply at the sacrificial love of Jesus, is to learn more about it, to receive it with fresh understanding. Now let’s look at His love after the resurrection, seeking His friends, making them His brothers, walking with them, explaining it to them, providing some evidence to strengthen their faith, giving them instructions, and even when He ascended to be fully glorified again and seated at the right hand of the Father, He sent the gift of the Holy Spirit so we would never be alone, and would be reminded of the Words of God, and empowered to tell the whole world, and make disciples (to be an example and speak a testimony of Christ Jesus and the love of God, the good news, the hope for all mankind) starting at home, then extending outward. …

o   [WOW! I am having my own little “selah” moment right here and now as the Holy Spirit brings fresh revelation as I type this. I see His love a new, and I am drawn and compelled to draw near to this God who loves with such an amazing love – how can I know it – a love I don’t deserve but so graciously and lavishly have been given! Luke 7:36-50 gives us a picture of what happens when we fully understand this, this unmerited forgiveness of much, produces a lavish and grateful love response. So even as I journal this, to remember what the Holy Spirit through the Word of God is refreshing in me…. Tears fall in amazing gratitude to The One who loves me with a love my mind is not fully capable of comprehending. This love FREES me, and it is driving out the fear of disappointing people, AND it compels me to pick up my cross, to follow, to love others, and to tells others of God’s love.]

So we, those who have received the gift of Salvation, and who are bond servants of the most High God, who have received the forgiveness of a multitude of sins, who have been granted joint heir status with Christ Jesus, not of our own doing but a gift from God received by faith; we are compelled … (I keep using this word but it is the most fitting word I can find) … we are compelled, and commanded to be an example of this love, to tell others about it, and to teach them to walk in it; which is receiving Christ Jesus and walking in and abiding in Him – for He is The Way, The Truth, and The Light. We are to love others like He did starting at home, and in our neighborhoods, in our city, and ever outward, even to the ends of the world.

More simply put (and this is the short version the Holy Spirt first dropped into my thoughts):
We are to first receive His Love; then to love like He does; seeking connection with others first (before they love us back, or even if they never do), and our love is to be sacrificial, it causes parts of us to die, like Jesus did. “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;” Phil. 2:6 NIV.

[This paragraph begins to explore some things that I don't fully explain. I almost deleted it but I am leaving here for me to come back to study it out further.] The concept is simple but is not easy to do. It was "simple" for God too but also not "easy" for Him. It was a simple resolution to a legal matter for God too, but it was NOT easy, and it was NOT painless. It was costly. But it was done because God is Love, and “love does”. Period. The focus of loves’ “doing” is the joy of the reconciled intimacy of relationship. May that be my focus when loving freely and unconditionally is difficult and costly, knowing that only love freely given can be freely (without demand) returned. That seems to be the central point of everything I study in the bible. That God desires love freely (without demand) returned to Him. My bible studies have lead me to believe that we can’t learn this without seeing, hearing, and receiving His example of Love first.

These are a lot of words poured out and recorded here so
that I would not forget the depth of our need to:

Receive God’s Love daily,
and then love people like He loves us.
Love first and love sacrificially;
first to “your own”
and then in the same manner others.

Prayer:

Jesus, I am freshly amazed by your love again this morning. Thank you so much for the way you have entered into my morning, into thoughts, into my time, into my spirit.  Lord, you call me friend and call you call me sister/brother/sibling … how great a love I do not understand yet… Thank you! Thank you for always loving me first.  I love you too!!

Holy Spirit please help me to keep this fresh in my soul (thoughts and emotions). Your name is helper. So I call upon you Helper to help me keep my focus on the JOY. To, as the Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Philippians,

⁸ … consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. ¹⁰ I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

¹² Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ¹³ Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

God, please help me to consider everything achieved, good or bad, as lost, or as a worthy cost, for the surpassing greatness of knowing you, intimately, personally, in deepening relationship and connection with You. Lord you are worthy of such a cost. But it is far more than the fact that you are worthy of it … it’s that this love, Your Love, enables me to release my grip on the things I treasure, the things that are of true value to me, the things I have worked hard to achieve and protect, good things, precious things. I open my “hands” and release these things in order to take a hold of the surpassing greatness of you. 

Lord, even now as I open my hands and extend them to you as an act of willing surrender and in response to your great and surpassing love, I pause and realized that behind all that I surrender,

there is still a hesitation in me. I confess this and ask for your forgiveness and help. The draw of Your surpassing greatness compels me still; compels me, draws me, and helps me to recognize that everything I treasure, in comparison to you, is as garbage. No, I have not yet achieved a life that daily lives out this level of surrender and embrace. But I press on. I lean in to You. I reach for You. I keep reaching. I keep opening my hands and releasing these things, so that I might one day fully know what it is to share in the joy of sharing in your sufferings, taking up my cross and following you until I am fully yours. And that I may one day fully attain your resurrection power at work in me.

God you took hold of me.  My relationship with you is based on that. YOU loved me first. YOU sought me, pursed me, provided opportunity for me to respond and receive Your Love. So I give my love to You, by renewing my determination to take hold of the purposes for which You took hold of me. I renew my determination to abide in you, to apply diligence to be found in You, known not as some good person, but known as Yours (your beloved), that my life is known as one that embodies You. That your love fills me through and through, and informs my thoughts, and actions, that Your Love teaches me to love better more and more every day.  Help me love like you do.  Help me to love with boundaries, but unconditionally. It is my renewed goal to live that this life, of love, joy, and sacrifice; and achieve the prize of this high calling – YOU made manifest.

God these are high and lofty prayers, please help me.  I do not want them to be empty vain words. I love you. I need you. Thank you again for this reminder, this refreshed view of Your Love. I trust you to complete the work you have begun, and to use me to be blessing to others.

In the precious name of Jesus, Amen.

[1]  Bible Study Tools website, Dictionaries - Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology – Propitiation  https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/propitiation/  , 2/10/2018