ICS Daily Devotions
God’s Love is Unconditional
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Do you have someone who is deeply in love with you? This person has been pursuing you with his love from the moment he set his eyes on you? IN FACT, WE HAVE THE SAME LOVER pursuing ALL OF US. His name is GOD.
God has been pursuing His love towards us from the day Adam and Eve sinned against Him. He promised that there will be the seed of the woman who will bruise the head of the serpent. God went on with cutting a covenant with Abram to make him a blessing to many nations and we know that it is through Abraham’s lineage that Jesus came into this world.
God bound Himself to help mankind when He established a blood covenant with Abraham. In this covenant of love, all that mankind will face in life, God who is the covenant partner will watch over them to protect them unless man willfully sin against God.
In the Old Testament, God also established the sacrificial system so that men will have their sins covered and have access to Him through the High Priest ministry. Praise the Lord that when Jesus came, he didn’t come to condemn the world but through His work of redemption, all of us can be saved. The work of the cross and the full works of redemption is purely AN ACT OF HIS UNCONDITIONAL LOVE for us. Those who respond to the love of God will not perish but will enjoy abundant life and eternal life with the loving Father in eternity.
When we fully understand the love of God established through the blood of Christ because of the abundance of God’s grace, we will be so secured in His love and understand the perfect love of God casts out all fears. We are so blessed to be in a position of being loved by Him unconditionally and this is the very foundation of our security in this world where no amount of money will be able to purchase this positional truth.
We will be able to love others better when we are fully convinced of God’s love for us and how He sees us in Christ.
There is a consistency in God’s love because Jesus is our role model and we have been commanded to love and forgive as we have received the same treatment. Jesus always accepts us! He deemed that we are the most valuable person in His eyes because He redeemed us with His blood! He forgave us while we were still a sinner. Despite of the fact that some of us are difficult to love, demanding, disappointing and destructive people but He still affirmed us of His unconditional love.
He believes in us because He entrusted the preaching of the gospel to all of us and He doesn’t have a plan B! We are it, the preaching team that is suppose to bring it to the ends of the world.
He has given us life, the God’s kind of life to live out the abundant life on this earth. If God requires us to live a godly and holy life without giving us the means to do it then He is an unjust God. But praise be to God that He has made us a new creation, given us His nature in us and enabled us to love.
What we are really required to do right now is to live out the new life based on the new man created in righteousness and holiness! It is not trying to live a life of love but allowing the love that is within us to flow out of us! It is not about trying to use an external ability but an ability that is in us to be who we are in Christ.
Sermon Series: Love
