Today, Monday August 23
What God Did For Us
1 John 4:9-10 & 14
“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 the propitiation for our sins. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
Most of us spend the majority of our time worrying about or taking care of our day to day cares that really are very temporal. We buy car insurance just in case in the future we might have an accident. We buy house insurance just in case in the future the house might catch on fire or be damaged by a storm. If we have children, we spend an enormous amount of time working on getting them an education so they can have a good job and live a better life in the future. We spend a lot of time these days worrying about Covid-19 and our health. We worry about our present state of affairs socially, politically and economically in our country and the world.
But it seems that we spend very little time thinking about and preparing for eternity. Our span of life on earth is but a speck of dust, if that, compared to eternity. If there is one thing we should be insured for, or assured of, in this present world, is our preparation for eternity. Are we ready to meet God? Do we have the assurance that our sins are forgiven. Hebrews 9:27 tells us that, “It is appointed for a man once to die and after this the judgement”.
I think that’s why I love and enjoy the Epistle of 1 John so much! It appears that the purpose for this book is to help us know, that we know for sure, that our final destination will be in a wonderful place called heaven with the Lord of life for all eternity!
In the passage before us today, John is dealing with three foundation truths that we need to know and believe! He is answering the questions: Who God is? What did God do? And what is God doing? Remember John has already assured us at least twice in this chapter that “God is love”.
Now John tells us how God “manifested” His great love to us. The word manifested means "to come out in the open, to be made public." It is the opposite of "to hide, to make secret." Under the Old Covenant, God was hidden behind the shadows of ritual and ceremony (Hebrrews 10:1); but in Jesus Christ "the life was manifested" (1 John 1:2). "He that hath seen Me," said Jesus, "hath seen the Father" (John 14:9).
In the verses above we read three times that “God sent His Son”. First, God sent His Son, “that we might live through Him.” (v. 9) Next, God sent His Son, “to be the propitiation for our sins.” (v. 10) And finally, God sent His Son, “to be the Savior of the world.” (v. 14)
God communicated His awesome love to us in many ways, but the greatest expression of God's love is in the death of His Son. "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).
It is my prayer today that you will experience, in a very personal way, this wonderful love of God by believing and receiving the great gift of God’s love in Jesus Christ!
God bless!
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