Controlling Love (part 2)
“For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15 ESV) That word controls is the idea of pressing together and compelling forward onto a singular path. Paul was controlled by the love of Jesus. It controlled him, compelled him, forced him to no longer live for himself but for Jesus.
How do we become controlled by the love of Jesus? Before you can be controlled by the love of Jesus you must be continuously experiencing the love of Jesus for you.
How do we personally experience the love of Jesus? We pray and ask God to love us, we see the love of God revealed in scripture, we trust and obey the Word, and we experience the love as God pours it into our heart through the Holy Spirit.
Do you want to be controlled by the love of Jesus so that you no longer live for yourself but for Jesus who for your sake died and was raised?
See how much God values loving you.
We can know how valuable something is to someone by the price they are willing to pay to obtain it. What was God willing to pay so that He could love you forever? How much does God value being able to love you for eternity? “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:1-2 ESV) Notice that the cost of His love was Himself, His life. It was not just money or time or energy or inconvenience or even suffering; it was the full extent of sacrifice. He gave Himself. Jesus said in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
The life Jesus gave for us was no ordinary life of human value; this life, of all the lives that have ever lived, was the most valuable life. The worthiest of living, the least worthy of dying. That is the life that was given so that you could be loved by God.
And consider now not only the life that Jesus sacrificed for us but also think about what the sacrifice involved. God cannot die. To get to the point where He could die, God had to plan for it.
He left the glory of heaven and took on human nature so that He could hunger and get tired and, in the end, suffer and die. The incarnation was the preparation of hands and feet for the nails of the cross.
So, when Ephesians 5:2 says, “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us,” don’t breeze over the words: “gave himself up.” God valued loving us forever so much that He gave the most valuable thing there is to give so that He could love us…the perfect, infinitely valuable life of His Son Jesus
See how unworthy you were to be loved by God.
Would you give your life for a weak, ungodly, sinner who is your enemy? Christ’s love for us is magnified when we see that when God chose to love us, even at the cost of Jesus’ life, we were not worthy of His love. “and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” (Romans 5:5-10 ESV) Paul uses four words to describe who we were when Jesus gave His life for us: weak, ungodly, sinners, and enemies. God sacrificed His Son for us while we were enemies. This is who you and I were when Jesus gave His life for us: We were guilty sinners, we were weak and helpless, we were ungodly and deserving of the just and holy wrath of God, and we were His enemies. And in spite of all that, He loved you and gave His Son to die that you might live.
See that God’s love is personal not professional.
Does God love you merely because He’s God and you’re human (professional), or because you are “you” (personal)? When you look at all your shortcomings, your inadequacies, your behavior, is it difficult for you to believe that someone could know all of that and still love you in a personal way? “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” (Luke 15:4-7 ESV) We can see in this parable that He cares about us personally. He went looking for you personally, and when He found you, He rejoiced. Jesus loves you personally because you are you; not professionally because He’s God and you’re human and a part of a larger group.
See how much God delights in loving you.
Does God love you because He has to or because He wants to? Maybe you’re thinking, “Well the only reason God loves me personally is because He is God and He has to. That’s just who God is”.
And you feel it more like a begrudging love, and obligatory love than the reality that God delights in loving you. I want you to see in the Word of God that God is for you and delights in loving you.
First, we need to understand that God isn’t under obligation to love you. “Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’?” (Isaiah 45:9) Out of nothing God makes the clay, and out of the clay He makes us. We are His possession to do with as He wishes. “Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.” (Psalm 100:3 ESV) It is a humbling thing to be a sheep and a clay pot that belong to somebody else. God has absolute power and rights as our creator.
“I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.” (Jeremiah 32:40-41 ESV) The Creator delights to do you good. With all the power in the universe and with absolute right to do as He pleases with what He made. He desires to do good to us!
See how generous God is with His love.
God did not settle to just simply save us from sin, and death, and eternal hell; He was much more generous with His love. That would have been plenty to rejoice about, but God has more for us, much more. He showed us a deeper kind of love beyond all that. “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” (1 John 3:1 ESV) He made us to be called children of God. Don’t take this for granted. But the love goes even deeper.
Being God’s children means that we are going to inherit what God owns. Paul says this in Romans 8:16-17, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” It is not just heaven we inherit; it is God, who is infinitely greater and more glorious than heaven itself. We are fellow heirs with Christ. But what is Christ an heir of? Hebrews 1:2 tells us: “but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. Christ is heir of all things. And we are fellow heirs with Him of all things. God’s love is so lavish and generous that He makes you a child and an heir, an heir of God and of all things.
See that you are greatly loved
What would it mean to you if an angel of God came and told you that you are greatly loved? Three times this happened to Daniel:
- “At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved. Therefore consider the word and understand the vision.” Daniel 9:23 ESV
- “And he said to me, “O Daniel, man greatly loved, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright, for now I have been sent to you.”” Daniel 10:11 ESV
- “And he said, “O man greatly loved, fear not, peace be with you; be strong and of good courage.”” Daniel 10:19 ESV
If you have faith in Jesus, God Himself says to you in His word, which is better than an angel of God speaking, “You are greatly loved.” “among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—” (Ephesians 2:3-5 ESV) If you have been saved by grace through faith you are greatly loved. Greatly loved by the Creator of the universe!
Living Hope Ministries 