craigmanderson

Crazy love # 1 Sunday 3^rd March 2013 AM

In one of the greatest debates of our time men argue about whether we are created or evolved from chance. Some, who find it hard to swallow that a personal God created all this, are forced to concede to Intelligent Design because of the wonder and complexity of living things. Still others are fully persuaded that God is there and they can know Him.

As atheists account for around 22% of the Australian population and approximately 14-16% world wide, it still leaves many either wondering or confident about God’s existence. What I would like to show them all is how much God loves each and every one of them.

Do you know God loves you?

So often we measure this by how happy we are, or by how well things have gone for us or some other subjective manner.

Just as your child might say to you that you don’t love them because you didn’t give them what they wanted, we, as adult Christians, can be equally as obtuse when it comes assessing whether God loves us or not. Wisdom doesn’t come cheap – it can take a lifetime of living through the highs and lows of our experiences to come to the point of recognising God’s hand on our life.

How do you know God loves you?

If this were an apologetics seminar I would describe the logic behind the argument. But this is teaching from the word. We are fully persuaded about the authenticity and reliability of God’s word. (See the resources on this at http://pvc.podomatic.com/player/web/2010-04-09T06_14_02-07_00  and following 7 messages)

In the beginning God created man. Why?

1. Because He wanted Kids. It is the nature of God that He is a father.

Gen 1:26  God said, Let Us [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] make mankind in Our image, after Our likeness, and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the [tame] beasts, and over all of the earth, and over everything that creeps upon the earth. [Ps. 104:30; Heb. 1:2; 11:3.]

Gen 1:27  So God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them. [Col. 3:9, 10; James 3:8, 9.]

Gen 1:28  And God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it [using all its vast resources in the service of God and man]; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and over every living creature that moves upon the earth.

In the New Testament Jesus reminds us of the father nature of God as His and our Father.

Mat 7:11  If you then, evil as you are, know how to give good and advantageous gifts to your children, how much more will your Father Who is in heaven [perfect as He is] give good and advantageous things to those who keep on asking Him!

2. Because He desires to have fellowship with us.

Joh 3:16  For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.

Rom_6:11  Even so consider yourselves also dead to sin and your relation to it broken, but alive to God [living in unbroken fellowship with Him] in Christ Jesus. (AMP)

Joh 14:2  In My Father’s house there are many dwelling places (homes). If it were not so, I would have told you; for I am going away to prepare a place for you.

Joh 14:3  And when (if) I go and make ready a place for you, I will come back again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also.

3. We are made for His Glory.

Isa 43:7  Even everyone who is called by My name, whom I have created for My glory, whom I have formed, whom I have made.

We bring Glory to Him through our relationship to Him.

Eph 3:10  [The purpose is] that through the church the complicated, many-sided wisdom of God in all its infinite variety and innumerable aspects might now be made known to the angelic rulers and authorities (principalities and powers) in the heavenly sphere.

4. This love is the culmination of His vast plan.

Eph 2:4  But God–so rich is He in His mercy! Because of and in order to satisfy the great and wonderful and intense love with which He loved us,

Eph 2:5  Even when we were dead (slain) by [our own] shortcomings and trespasses, He made us alive together in fellowship and in union with Christ; [He gave us the very life of Christ Himself, the same new life with which He quickened Him, for] it is by grace (His favor and mercy which you did not deserve) that you are saved (delivered from judgment and made partakers of Christ’s salvation).

Just how much does God love you?

Isa 49:13  Sing for joy, O heavens, and be joyful, O earth, and break forth into singing, O mountains! For the Lord has comforted His people and will have compassion upon His afflicted.

Isa 49:14  But Zion [Jerusalem, her people as seen in captivity] said, The Lord has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me.

Isa 49:15  [And the Lord answered] Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, yet I will not forget you.

Isa 49:16  Behold, I have indelibly imprinted (tattooed a picture of) you on the palm of each of My hands; [O Zion] your walls are continually before Me.

God is painting a picture for you in this passage.

Is there any mother here today that can remember breast feeding her baby?

At that time, did you ever forget that you had a baby? – NO of course not, but God says in contrast to His love and devotion to you; yes, a breast feeding mother can indeed forget her baby.

Can you see a woman forgetting her baby that is still in the breast feeding stage of life? Is that even possible? God makes a contrast to bring out a point to you. He says compared to His attention level…. Yes, a mother of an unweaned child CAN forget her baby  –  yet I will not forget you.

Tattoos are pretty popular these days, but I notice that very few people receive tattoos on the palms of their hands. It hurts, yes for sure, but the palms face you, they are not for others to see. If you want to hold onto something tight, then you hold it inside your clenched fist inside your palms.  When I want to remind myself of something important I write it on my palm – that’s where I am most likely to see it.

God is painting a picture for you here today. His love and affection and devotion for you is greater than a mother toward her new born. He has a photo of you imprinted on His palm. How can He forget you? Your walls are ever before Him. These walls are the walls of Jerusalem that were broken down by the enemy, by lack of fully functioning Kingdom and lack of the care of God’s people. The broken walls speak of those places of brokenness, loss, dysfunction and failure that surround our lives. God cares and God has answers.

If we truly receive a revelation of how great His love is toward us – what then?

How shall we respond?

1. Receive His love – be healed saved and restored. Accept His free gift of life and walk with Him in a bond of Love.
2. Truly desire that others may live.  If His love is so great can we neglect to tell others of it? Shall we be partakers of complete salvation and deny the others in spite of the fact that others brought me to this place of discovery? As Paul cried – “I am a debtor” He had received so much that he considered he owed to others who had not heard.

This Easter will you reach out to others? So that others may live.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What was your first experience of God’s love?
2. Has God’s love ever seemed distant from you?
3. What verse from today’s blog most speaks to you about God’s love to you?
4. How can we overcome disappointments to see the love of God at work in our lives?
5. How would you share the love of God with others?