This is Good and Acceptable In The Sight of God

“God is love…Love never fails” (1 John 4:8; 1 Corinthians 13:8)

That God is love is a characterization of his essence. When we talk about God being Just, or God being Omnipotent, or God being Omniscient we are talking about his attributes. But His essence is love and it is absolute.  And it dictates that He must save the sinner and He must justify the unjust…because He has the power and wisdom to do so.

His love, operating through His attributes of justice, power and wisdom, is directing the outcome of His creation to a place where every knee will bow VOLUNTARILY to God, because they have experienced his Love in the undeniable truth that they are alive, though they had been literally dead. They cannot deny the obvious truth that He has at that time resurrected both the just and the unjust...by the grace of God alone.

“…there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust...For by Grace are you saved...Look unto me and be saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. Surely, shall one say, in the LORD have I righteousness and strength: even to him shall men come; and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed. In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.” (Acts 24:15; Ephesians 2:8; Isaiah 45:22-25)

This is our hope, the good news that otherwise sinful people, who all die, will be saved by the only One who wants to do so, and has the power to do so.

“For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time…As in Adam ALL die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Timothy 2:3-6; 1 Corinthians 15:22)

Then, and only then will God be loved by all His creation, even as He loves each of us now.

Blameless And Beyond Reproach

"God is love…Love never fails" (1 John 4:8; I Corinthians 13:8).

If the God of the Bible, the one in whom I have chosen to trust, is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent…and is Love… what is there to worry about?

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8 38-39)

He is either the God the Bible says He is, or he is the god of religious myth, a god created by man. And if He is the God of the Bible then NOTHING…even poor decisions…will separate us from the love of God. He will not, nor can He fail in His plan…the plan to reconcile and save all through Christ Jesus our Lord…

“For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him, and through him to reconcile ALL things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross; through him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet he has now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.” (Colossians 1:19-22)

”Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 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 loved 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 also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” (1 John 4:8-12)

Some powerful truth here that we should consider.

1. If you do not love...you do not know God.

2. God IS Love.

3. God loved us and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

4. Therefore we ought to love one another

5. No one has ever seen God

6. God lives in us IF we love one another

7. When we love like God we are complete

I want to focus on just one of these truths - God is love. It does not say "God loves",  but that "God IS love."

Most fundamental and evangelical Christian organizations that I am aware of do not believe that God IS love. Their doctrine of the love of God can be summed up as follows:

God loves the world right up until the time they die without inviting Jesus into their heart.  At that time, His "just" nature trumps His love and requires Him to cast all unbelievers into hell to be supernaturally kept alive and tortured in the lake of fire for eternity.  This is their definition of a "just" God. THEY ARE WRONG! They do not know God. "God IS love" and He acts accordingly.  LOVE WINS!  Now that, is JUST.

“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13)

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs...Love never fails." (1 Corinthians 13:1-8)

Have you ever been in love?  Think about that person.  Okay, now let's assume that that person just did something that really hurt you - left you, ignored you, cursed you, whatever.

Do you still love them? If not, well, did you really love them in the way the Bible portrays love? The Greek word for love is agape in 1 Corinthians 13. The King James Version translates the word, charity. Think about charity.  What is it?  

I can tell you what it is not. It is NOT giving to someone expecting something in return. You may hope you get a thank you or a response of some sort, but that is not why you gave. You were charitable toward them because you cared about them.  They had a need that you wanted to fill, and you gave without any thought for getting something in return. You just met that need.  You made them happy! 

If that is how you felt, then congratulations!  You were "in the Spirit" - at least for that moment. You have experienced how God feels toward ALL of mankind ALL OF THE TIME.

"For God so loved the world that he gave...." (John 3:16)