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In the last three lessons on God’s love, we learned more about what God’s love is and how it causes him to act. God’s love is abundant and lasts forever, and he loved us so much that he sent his Son to save us so we could be adopted into his family. His love is intimately connected with many of God’s other characteristics, including how he provides for us and protects us. Now that we understand God’s love in more depth, how should we respond to it? That’s what we want to answer in this lesson. We’ll look at this from two perspectives:
How God’s love changes my relationship with him
How God’s love changes my relationship with other people
How God’s love changes my relationship with him
We should respond to God’s love in three ways. God’s love should cause us to worship him. God’s love should cause us to live in him, or remain in him, as we discussed in our Remain in Christ word study. And God’s love should cause us to have hope. Let’s look at each of these in more detail.
Worship God
Psalm 63:6 says:
Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
Once we understand God’s love, we know that his love is better than anything else in this world, including life itself. This causes us to glorify or worship God.
Part of our worship should include giving thanks to God for his love.
Psalm 107:1, 8-9: 1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
his love endures forever.8 Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
and his wonderful deeds for mankind,
9 for he satisfies the thirsty
and fills the hungry with good things.
Psalm 136:1-3: 1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
His love endures forever.
2 Give thanks to the God of gods.
His love endures forever.
3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
His love endures forever.
Live in God
The book of 1 John has a lot to say about what it means to live in God or remain in Christ, but this passage in 1 John 4 tells us how to respond to God’s love:
1 John 4:15-18: 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.
If we live in God in response to his love, we should find ourselves becoming more like Jesus. If we truly understand the depth of God’s love for us, we will rely on his love and we will not be afraid.
Another key aspect about living in God that we learned in our Remain in Christ study is that part of remaining in Christ is keeping God’s commands. Jesus’ disciple John, who wrote 1 John, also wrote about this in the gospel of John:
John 14:21: “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
John 15:9-10: 9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.”
In these verses, we see an intricate relationship between God loving us and us loving God, which we show by obeying his commands.
Put my hope in God
One thing that we find very little of in this world is hope. Our world is full of sin and hate and destruction. But if we know the love God has for us, and we know that love us unfailing, then we have hope:
Psalm 130:7-8: 7 Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
for with the Lord is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.
8 He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.
If we focus on God and his love, then we have hope because we know that he has redeemed us from our sins so that the depravity of this world is not the end. This hope keeps us going as we wait for God to bring us into eternal life with him:
Jude 1:20-21: 20 But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.
How God’s love changes my relationship with other people
God’s love shouldn’t only change how we interact with God. It should also change how we interact with other people.
Love one another
We’ll look at the command to love one another a little more in a couple weeks, but loving other people is one of our primary responses to God’s love for us.
John 13:34: 34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
1 John 4:11-12: 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.
Our love for one another serves at least two purposes: It provides evidence that we are followers of Christ, and it allows God’s love to be made complete in us.
The Bible calls out one relationship in particular that should show love as a result of God’s love:
Ephesians 5:25: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
The Bible compares the relationship between Jesus and the church with a marriage relationship between a man and woman. Just as Jesus loved the church and died to save her, so men should also love their wives. This is the best reflection of God’s love for us that we can find on this earth.
Speak of God’s love
The last response to God’s love that we will learn about today is that if we understand the greatness of God’s love, we will share that with other people.
Psalm 89:1-2: 1 I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever;
with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known
through all generations.
2 I will declare that your love stands firm forever,
that you have established your faithfulness in heaven itself.
God’s love isn’t something we should keep to ourselves. His love isn’t limited or exclusive. The more we share God’s love, the more his love will abound from generation to generation.
Conclusion
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been overwhelmed by my greater understanding of God’s love these last few weeks. God’s love extends beyond anything we could ever imagine, and it never fails us. His love caused him to give us the gift of salvation, which came at the price of the life of his Son. This gives us hope in a dark world because we know that we are saved from our sins. In response, we should worship God, live in him, love one another, and tell others about his love for us. What will you do in response to God’s love today?Grounded in the Bible is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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