If you want to receive Grounded in the Bible’s weekly Bible studies in your inbox each week, you can subscribe here! Join us as we "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
In last week’s lesson, we looked at the scope of God’s love—God’s love is immeasurable, beyond what we as humans can understand. There’s nowhere we can go to get away from God’s love, and his love never fails and never ends. It is perfect in its completeness.
Love, in its essence, should change the way we live and interact with people. The same is true for God’s love. God acts a certain way because he loves us, and that makes an eternal difference in the lives of those whom he loves and who love him in return. In this lesson, we want to look at the outcomes of God’s love. How does God’s love dictate how he interacts with those he loves? We’ll look at 6 specific outcomes of God’s love:
He sent his Son to save us
He makes us alive in Christ
He rejoices over us
He gives us the Holy Spirit
He treats us as his children
He answers our prayers
He Sent His Son to Save Us
The primary outcome of God’s love is that he sent his one and only Son to pay the penalty for our sins so that if we believe in him, we can have eternal life.
John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
1 John 4:9-10: 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.
Not only did God send his Son to die for our sins, but he did that while we were still sinners, when there was no guarantee that anyone would follow him.
Romans 5:8: But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Although we see God’s love through his sending of Jesus, Jesus also showed his love by actually following through on God’s plan. And that plan wasn’t an easy one for Jesus. Jesus had to endure life as a human, with all the human temptations and pain, but still live a perfect life. He had to endure a humiliating trial, the worst beating and torture that you could imagine, and the most painful death known to man—crucifixion. And he did this willingly because of his love for us.
1 John 3:16: This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
John 15:13: Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
The Bible tells us that Jesus focused on this love to help him follow through with God’s plan all the way to the end.
John 13:1: It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
Through these acts of love, Jesus became our Redeemer and Savior. However, in order to get to this point where Jesus could come to earth, God acted as Redeemer and Savior for his chosen nation Israel, the line through which Jesus would come.
Deuteronomy 7:7-9: 7 The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.
Psalm 17:7: Show me the wonders of your great love,
you who save by your right hand
those who take refuge in you from their foes.
From the beginning when God created us and selected Israel as his chosen nation, his love became the guiding force through which all humans can be saved.
He Makes Us Alive in Christ
The Bible tells us that sin equals death, and without God’s mercy, death would be the reality for all of us. However, God’s love changes all of that.
Ephesians 2:4-5: 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Because of God’s love, we can be alive with Christ rather than dead in sin.
He Rejoices Over Us
When God’s love results in someone being saved, it results in rejoicing.
Zephaniah 3:17: “The Lord your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.”
God’s love isn’t just a passive love that doesn’t care about the end result. He desires for us to be saved, and he is excited and rejoices when we are saved.
He Gives Us the Holy Spirit
God’s love results in salvation for those who choose to follow him, and that love is extended by God sending the Holy Spirit to guide us in our daily lives.
Titus 3:4-6: 4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior.
Romans 5:5: And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
The Holy Spirit is how we remain connected to Christ, as we saw in our Remain in Christ word study.
1 John 4:13-16: 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.
The Holy Spirit helps us know that we can rely on God’s love.
He Treats Us as His Children
One of the greatest promises in the Bible is that if we follow God, he will see us as his children.
1 John 3:1: See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
Do you know how amazing it is that God calls us his children? Because we are his children, we have his love, we have his protection, we have all of his promises that he made to his people. We are on the receiving end of his mercy and grace. We are part of his family and part of his eternal kingdom. We have an inheritance saved for us, which is eternity in heaven with him.
Although the Bible describes many great outcomes of being children of God, it also gives a warning. Just like a good father disciplines his children, God also disciplines his children when they need it.
Hebrews 12:6: “because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”
Discipline isn’t a mark of hate or anger. It is a mark of love. A father who disciplines his children wants his children to grow up to be people who follow God and who treat others with respect. God disciplines his children for the same reason. He wants us to love God and love other people.
He Answers Our Prayers
The final outcome of God’s love that we’ll discuss today is that as God’s children, he listens to us and answers us when we pray.
Psalm 69:13, 16: 13 But I pray to you, Lord,
in the time of your favor;
in your great love, O God,
answer me with your sure salvation.16 Answer me, Lord, out of the goodness of your love;
in your great mercy turn to me.
Because of God’s love, we can be assured that he will answer us and save us.
Conclusion
God’s love flows out of him and into us, leading to so many essential outcomes that define the Christian life. Without God’s love, there would be no mechanism for salvation. We would be condemned to suffer the penalty for our sin with no hope for something different. But because of God’s love, we can be saved, we can be part of God’s family, and we can receive the Holy Spirit to guide us to remain in Christ each day. When we receive God’s love and salvation, we become alive in Christ, and God rejoices over us. We are that precious to him.
Premium Resources
Each individual characteristic of God study will come with two resources: a word search just for fun (including an answer key), and a list of verses for if you want to investigate that individual characteristic of God more completely.
You can access these resources by clicking here: God Is Love Resources
Or you can download them here: