LOVEPERCEPTION AND PRODUCT
Jack Davis
“Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” I John 3:16
I John 4:19, “We love him, because he first loved us.”
I John 4:8-11, “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.”
I John 4:16, “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”
Perception – “God is love.” How is it possible for us to grasp this marvelous fact? Divine love speaks of far more then the quality that God possesses. Love is what God is in His very nature. The love that he always shows in manifesting Himself, and not that which is occasioned by an outside cause. Thank God for the way He has provided for our perception. We generally think of love as being known by the action it prompts. Yet, we must realize that this does not originate with anything that humanity could produce, but is abundantly expressed in the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God so loved that He gave. Jesus loved me and gave Himself for me. The Holy Spirit sheds abroad that love in our hearts. He delights to saturate our innermost being in the measure that we will allow or submit unto Him.
Our apostle Paul was inspired to pray that we come to know the full measure of the love of Christ, that we might be filled with all the fulness of God, Eph. 3:19.
Hereby Perceive We: God has provided for our perception in this. Jesus “laid down” His life for us. What wonderful condescension, true humility, in such laying down. Shall we not see the opposite of Satan who tried to lift himself up. This wonderfully expresses a letting go, releasing, turning loose to send forth from the place of abode (His God-given body). Because of His great love for us, Jesus presented His body for the beating, bruising, breaking, bleeding, while bearing our sin on the tree.
“His life” – a possession, His own. That with which He could do as He pleased. He gave it up, or dismissed it. Jesus said, “No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself.” John 10:18, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down His life for His friends,” John 15:13.
Romans 5:6-10, tell us the kind of people we were when Jesus laid down His life. We were: without strength, powerless, helpless, without moral fiber, Godless, unrighteous and unable to get right. We in fact were no good, neither noble, nor lovable, nor beneficial. We as sinners had missed the mark, gone out of the way, and couldn’t find a way home to God. Yet, above all, or below all, we were by unprovoked choice “enemies,” hateful, hostel toward our benefactor.
“For Us:” May we ever thank HIM for dying in our place, on our behalf, and for our benefit. Oh yes, His life was surrendered to the service of God and Father. He could certainly say, “My times are in thine hand.” Yet, He also gave His life for us, so that He could give it to us, and hence live in us, that we might also live in Him, and with Him forever. We are saved by His life, that we may enjoy the consummation of life, being saved unto the uttermost.
Product: We ought (are indebted, obligated) to lay down our lives for the brethren. What a great privilege to have evidenced indeed that we are partakers of the very nature of our father, God is love. Living for self-satisfaction is the opponent of sacrificial living (II Cor. 5:15). We are not knowing nor making known the Love of God when we try to conduct our lives selfishly, greedily, thus consume our life-span on our own desires or interest.
So here we are, knowing that Love begets love, yet we find ourselves in a great and terrible quandary if He that provides the perception doesn’t also product the product. It is clear to receptive hearts that the only means or resource at our disposal to repay our great debt of love to our Father and Lord is to let Him do the living first in us, then out to others. Shall we consider one another to provoke unto love and good works? Is this, or shall this be the path for our feet in the year, months, weeks, days, or moments ahead? AMEN, HALLELUIAH, EVEN SO, COME QUICKLY LORD JESUS!!
