"This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love; not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we ought to love one another." 1 John 4:9-11
I want to share a powerful teach from Dr. Paul David Tripp's book, A BROKEN DOWN HOUSE -- Living Productively in a World Gone Bad (Shepherd Press) on loving the way that God would have us love others. It is one of those very convicting studies that I needed to hear.
I will share this teaching the next couple of days. Listen in on what God is teaching ME:
God's love is not like my love. He gives us the biblical model: God's love rescues me from SELF-LOVE so that I will be able to love others ...
"God knows that we are sinners, our first inclination in not to love others, but to love ourselves. Sin turns us in on ourselves. Sin causes us to be selfish, self-absorbed, and self-focused. Sin causes us to be obsessed with what WE want, what WE feel, and what WE think WE need.
Sin causes us to want to exist at the center of our own universe, having OUR feelings addressed, OUR wants satisfied, and OUR needs met. Sin makes us demanding and expectant, rather than serving and giving. So God has to rescue us from US. He has to free us from bondage to ourselves so that we can live for Him and for others.
And as He does this, God is not taking our humanity from us. You see, we were designed to love HIM and to love others. In progressively freeing us from sin, he is increasingly enabling us to live as we were created to live. And this is itself the happiest and satisfying way to live.
We are called to love in a "Cross-centered" way ... willing self-sacrifice for the redemptive good of another.
We will unpack how this look over the next couple of days. Wow. I needed to hear this today. This exposes my heart and my need to love as Christ would have me love. That is only possible as Christ lives out HIS life through me. -- Bill Welte is President and CEO of America's KESWICK
DIGGING DEEPER: Proverbs 26; Exodus 14-15; Matthew 17
DIG THIS QUOTE: The death of Jesus was a complete and full satisfaction of divine justice for all who trust in Him. At the cross there is no tension between justice and mercy; instead, they meet in full harmony. While mercy has full expression, justice has been honored and magnified. It has exacted its penalty and been completely satisfied. Therefore, as believers we can rejoice in the abundant mercy of God through Christ, while also fully honoring the inviolate nature of His holy justice. -- Dr. Jerry Bridges
DETERMINED DIGGING: Level 1 -- 2 Chronicles; Level 2 -- Psalm 19
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