{"id":4241,"date":"2013-07-24T00:05:29","date_gmt":"2013-07-24T07:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=4241"},"modified":"2013-07-23T23:44:32","modified_gmt":"2013-07-24T06:44:32","slug":"god-loves-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2013\/07\/24\/god-loves-you\/","title":{"rendered":"God Loves You"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8\u00a0Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:7-8)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The short answer to all our questions about God is simple: God is love. <\/p>\n

Paul writes a bit more extensively and gives a bit more detail, building on the concept:<\/p>\n

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,\u00a0through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.\u00a0Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God\u2019s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. <\/p>\n

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:1-8)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If God hadn’t told us in the Bible that he loves us, we might not realize that he does. Anymore than that girl or boy you were enamored of in junior high had any clue how you felt, since you never worked up the courage to say anything.<\/p>\n

The universe is not an obviously kind and loving sort of place, which is perhaps why the Bible so frequently informs us, both through the stories told in its pages, as well as through simple, declarative statements, that God loves us. John wrote that \u201cGod is love\u201d while Paul reminds us what that means in the context of Jesus\u2019 visit to this blue marble. Paul points out the obvious about human love: we love those who love us. We wouldn\u2019t even think of being nice to someone who is cruel to us. But God\u2019s love is remarkably inhuman. He writes, \u201cYou see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.\u201d While someone might be willing to die for a loved one, whether child or spouse, the chances of you willing to die for someone you don\u2019t know, or worse, someone who is your enemy are slim and none. But God\u2019s love is different from ours. It is not dependent upon performance. It doesn’t matter if you care, if you are nice to God, if you do what he asks or refrain from what he warns about. No matter how bad, rebellious or hateful you might be, God loves you and willing gave everything he had on your behalf. We don\u2019t see that kind of love\u2014a selfless, utterly altruistic love\u2014expressed between people. But that is God\u2019s natural state in how he expresses himself toward us.<\/p>\n

Stuff I Thought Was Interesting Today<\/strong><\/center><\/p>\n

Behold the Incredible Places Where We’ll Build Cities in Space<\/a><\/p>\n

My Week in North Korea: A Soviet-born American tours the Hermit Kingdom and finds humanity in a most inhumane place.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8\u00a0Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:7-8) The short … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4241"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4244,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4241\/revisions\/4244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}