‘A Time to Love As Jesus Christ Loves ‘

“The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

Have you ever thought what it might look like to knowing one is loved by Jesus Christ, for the first time?

The apostle Paul is describing that knowing,, to be being loved by Christ in such a way that nothing else matters anymore.

“The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

Paul’s whole life was reduced to nothing but a daily experience of working out what it meant to be loved by the Son of God, what it meant moment by moment to bank on being loved by Jesus.

Can you still recall when you first discovered what Paul was describing, when every moment, every thought, every word was hinged on the knowledge of knowing that Jesus Christ loved you, and how everyone who knew you, saw the difference in how that kind of love can radically change your life?

To be loved by Jesus Christ is literally an indescribable thing. It is deeper than any of us knows. And O how Paul wanted us to know the love of Christ the way he knew it! Do you remember how he prayed for us in Ephesians 3:18-19.

“that you might have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Paul virtually equated knowing the love of Christ with being filled with the fullness of God. Being loved by Jesus Christ means being filled of God.What an amazing picture, to being loved by Jesus Christ is being filled of God. Can you imagine what that must look like through other people who we see and meet in our daily lives? It must be mind boggling!

But what if we don’t any longer see ourselves in the relationship we had with Jesus Christ? What are others seeing ? More importantly are they seeing enough to make a difference in their lives?

Jesus said that we are now the lights in this world, but what good is a light light bulb if there’s no source of power to give it light?

I remember years ago a study that Pastor Chuck Smith gave where he was talking about something similar. He used the illustration of how the sun gives off light and warmth upon our world, and how the moon in close proximity gives off the illusion that it too is “shining”, when in reality, it is simply reflecting the powerful light of the sun.

In the same way, our own lives are to reflect the love of Jesus Christ through our lives, leading others to its warmth and belonging by a loving God

I was talking with my wife over dinner the other night, and she shared how the Lord had spoken into her heart about all the images of violence and and looting going on through our land and how so many people are trying to find answer. She said, (by permission) that what she received from the Lord really sums up the thought of what it must look like to others of what that love looks like, “Love God and love people”.

The Bible says that Jesus Christ loved us in life and He loved us in death; that He loved us in the easiest times and He loved us in the hardest times. These are pictures in our life that people have seen and sometimes we forget how others were moved to believe or not, by what they saw in us through those times.

When someone loves us when two things appear—they stick with us over time, and they stick with us when it is costly. These are the two things I see here in this verse: having loved us over the years (He has been patient with all our sin and misunderstanding) How He is now loving us to the uttermost, others can’t help but see it through our lives.

This is what I long for, and this is what I have by faith, an experience of being loved with a love that lasts, that is not fickle, or uncertain, but durable, constant, stable. A love that is extensive, that lasts over time, all time, but also a love that is intensive. A love that says and breathes how we should long to be loved radically, deeply, excessively, passionately and then go out and reflect it, in our words, through our actions, that others might see the meanings of why they’re on this planet, to know they’re loved by a God who went the full extent that they might know Him, and be filled with God in Christ Jesus, filled with His love.

And the word tells us, “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” It went long and it went deep. O, may God give us the power to comprehend with all the saints what is the height and depth and length and breadth and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge that we might be filled with all the fullness of God.”