David, the “sweet Psalmist of Israel,” lamented at the death of his best friend Jonathan, “Thy love to me was wonderful.” (Here I have alluded to 2 Samuel 23:1 and quoted a Line from 2 Samuel 1:26.)
No, I do not believe that these two (David and Jonathan, King Saul’s son) were ever “lovers,” as some perverted commentaries teach! (Sometimes men “read into” a Text what already lies in their dark hearts. True, the next clause in 2 Samuel 1:26 says: “Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” But that does not imply anything contrary to God’s explicit Law!)
All that aside, this morning … I’d still like to concentrate on love. Love and its quality, its purity, its beauty. Love as a gift to us from Almighty God! I mean God showering HIS LOVE upon us!
No Bible believer can doubt such a fact. “For God SO LOVED the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16
What love!
Jeremiah adds, directly quoting the Lord again: “Yea, I have loved thee with an EVERLASTING love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” Jeremiah 31:3, an everlasting Love!\
And Paul the Apostle, under the direct Influence/Inspiration of God the Holy Spirit prays that we can fathom: “The breadth, and length, and depth, and height of the LOVE OF CHRIST, which passeth knowledge.” Ephesians 3:18-19, “passeth knowledge!”
On and on the Biblical descriptors go … focusing on the LOVE OF GOD! How blessed we are, Christian friends, to enjoy such secure Love!
But now I am wondering … how should that ineffable, divine Love somehow impact me?
I got the answer, straight from Scripture! “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, IF God so loved us, (THEN) we ought also to LOVE ONE ANOTHER.” 1 John 4:9-11
Are you today a living example (though granted, in miniature) of the Love of God? Radiating to those around you?
Are you truly loving those whom God has placed in you life?
Think about it …
— Dr. Mike Bagwell
One more thought, taken from the “High Priestly” Prayer of Jesus in John chapter 17 … “Father, that the LOVE wherewith thou hast loved ME may be IN them.” The Father’s Love “in” us? The very Love with which He loved/loves His Darling Son!
Truly unfathomable!
I close (the second time) with 1 John 3:1 … “Behold, what MANNER of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that WE should be called the sons of God.” Where that word “manner” can literally mean “from another country!”
Wow!
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