"Just watch my servant blossom! Exalted, tall, head and shoulders above the crowd! But He didn't begin that way. At first everyone was appalled. He didn't even look human--a ruined face, disfigured past recognition. Nations all over the world will be in awe, taken aback, Kings shocked into silence when they see Him. For what was unheard of they'll see with their own eyes, what was unthinkable they'll have right before them." (Isaiah 52:13-15, Msg)
This passage contains the clearest picture of God’s love for all and for all time. “You ask, why should God be loved? I answer: the reason for loving God is God himself. And why should God be loved for his own sake? Simply because no one could me more justly loved than God, no one deserves our love more. Same may question if God deserves our love or if they might have something to gain by loving him. The answer to both questions is yes, but I find no other worthy reason for loving him except himself.
God is entitled to our love. Why? Because he gave himself for us despite the fact that we are so undeserving (in and of our self). What better could he have given? If we ask why God is entitled to our love, we should answer, “Because he first loved us.” God is clearly deserving of our love especially if we consider who he is that loves us, who we are that he loves, and how much he loves us.” (Bernard of Clairvaux, Four Degrees of Love)
His loves clearly displays the passion portrayed at Calvary! The word passion has two Biblical meanings: Passio-Christ's sufferings on the Cross for the pain, healing, and sins of the whole world. And; Passus-our response to His passion. Our response to His passion can only be in the form of sharing it and fulfilling it by our daily willful submission to it. Why? For His sake and His redemptive plan for the Nations. Just like Paul; 'I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow to attain to the resurrection of the dead.'
We live in the day of pure Grace, Mercy and Salvation! Jesus is now exalted, victorious, and tall, head and shoulders above all others. And His plan is for that 'shock and awe' to be seen through our passionate love for all. Through our being totally undone by His Passion, what was previously unseen and unheard of will be known through us!
To Love, to Be Loved
17-18 God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.
19 We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.
20-21 If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.
To love and to be loved! Ron Ross
Comments
Very informative and reassuring. The question that I retorically ask is, being 62, living inn Palm Beach Count, Fl. all of my life, and including Florida, having been to five other states; Ga., S.C., N.C., Tenn., and Ky,, and looking at this picture, as well as others you have posted, "How can a God make such a beautiful world, very small in such a vast universe, so vast and beautiful, and where uninhabited by man, even more picturre-perfect; and man can not find his way to believe in this God and accept the gift of the blood of His Son, Jeshua (Jesus) and escape the calamities of this world followed by hellfire and damnation, and be taken to heaven; a much more beautiful place of peace and tranquility with joyful worship and eternal security?"