God is Love

In this episode we continue to explore Jhon 3:16. This week we are at the word Love. We see why it is so easy for God to love us and define that love. 

Transcript

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This is the Learn to Be Loved Podcast. My name is Shannon. Welcome and thank you for joining with me today. The last couple of episodes we have been looking at John 3.16. It is the most famous Bible verse. Everybody knows for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. We talked about learning to be loved by God. We talked about putting your name in this verse to make it personal. We read the scripture in several different translations to glean the richness and the fullness of God's love. This week, we're gonna talk about the word love. It says, for God so loved. This word love is also probably one of the most famous Greek words. It's the word agape. And what agape means in the Greek is to esteem, to love, indicating a direction of a will and finding one's joy in something or someone. It also means to love, to regard with strong affection. That's from the complete word study New Testament. The Lexington Lexicon translates this word as to prize, See, this is no ordinary love. This is an extraordinary love that only God the Father could give. And the reason for this is that the very definition of God is love. God is love. 1 John 4, 8-10 says, If anyone who does not know love does not know God, Because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins. God, the Father, is love. is not an angry God of the Old Testament. We need to get this out of our heads. God is not some angry God that's looking for satisfaction or justice or looking to be paid back. But God is a God of love. His very nature is love. He is defined by love and all love flows from him. Everything that is love comes from God, and we must find a place in our lives, in our hearts, where we receive this love, where we receive the love of the Father. John 16, 27 in the New American Standard Version says, For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came forth from the Father. John 17, 23-26 says, I in them and you in me, that they may be perfected in unity. So that the world may know that you sent me and you loved them as you loved me. See, this is a profound truth. God the Father loves you just as much as he loves his son. Can you grasp that? He esteems you as much as his son. He loves you. His direction of will and finding joy in you is as much as he finds joy in his son. He regards you with the same affection as he regards his son. He prizes you as much as he prizes his son. He's content with you. He's happy with you. Just as happy as he is with Jesus. Continuing in John 17, verse 25, Jesus says, Righteous Father, although the world has not known you, yet I have known you. And these have known that you sent me. and I have made your name known to them and I will make it known so that the love which you loved me may be in them. and i in them so here we have jesus speaking praying to his father and he says that the world has not known you not one prophet not one teacher not one high priest not one religious leader was able to bring a true and accurate picture of who the father was all the way from the time of adam All the way into the time of Jesus, not one person knew the Father truly. But Jesus said, I come to show them who you are and who God is. The God that Jesus showed us was a God of love, not a God of wrath, not a God of judgment, not a God of anger. but a God of love. He said, I have made your name known to them. So I want you to see that in this verse, the world says for God so loved, he had copied the world. This is a world that does not know God, but yet he loves them anyways.

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Jesus knows the exact nature and character of the Father, and he defined that as love. 1 Corinthians 13, 4-8 is another famous verse. And this verse perfectly defines the nature and the character of the Father. It says in verse 4, love is patient. Love is kind. It is not jealous. Love does not brag, and it is not arrogant. It does not act unbecomingly. It does not seek its own. It is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered. It does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. And I want you to get to know A father that is patient, a father that is kind, that is not jealous. I want you to know a father that doesn't brag or is not arrogant or doesn't act unbecomingly like the pagan gods. I want you to know a father that doesn't seek his own, that's not provoked. I want you to know a God that doesn't take account of wrongs that's been suffered. I want you to know a God, a Father God, that does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. I want you to know a Father that bears... all things he believes all things and he hopes all things and he endures all things i want you to know a father that never fails i want you to know a father that loves you passionately anything or anyone who describes or explains the character of God and it is not in the context of love, it is a lie. See, we have made God into our own image we made god into an angry god we made god into an untrustworthy god into a temperamental god one that we don't know if he's happy or he's not happy we've turned him into this moody false god but the true god the god that jesus knows and has come to make known is a God of restoration, a God of love. So for God so loved the world, that's where we're at this week. I'm gonna close us in prayer and thank you for joining with us today. Father God, help us to know who you are. Help us to have a revelation this week of your love God let us put away all the false things that we've heard or seen or read that you are an angry God we know that's not true father you are you never fail you are defined by love God I pray God upon each and every person listening God you would reveal yourself your love nature to them this week help them to grow in that love understanding of your love. And we thank you for your love and your grace and your son. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.