Category: Love Divine

Romans 5:1-5 (NIV) – “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

 Romans 8:28 (NLT) – “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

2 Corinthians 4:17 (NIV) – “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”

“The reason Paul gives for saying that this hope will not disappoint us is that God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. It is because of ‘God’s love made palpable in the experience of the Spirit (v. 5b)’ that we have confidence and do not lose hope.” [Colin G. Kruse, The Pillar New Testament Commentary: Paul’s Letter to the Romans, page 231]

Because we have such assurance of God’s love being testified in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, we can walk through whatever difficulties or challenges in life with much hope.  We know that God causes everything to work together for the good, which is for his glory in our lives.  And, our troubles are momentary as we look forward to the eternal glory that “far outweighs them all.”

Prayer: Father, as the Holy Spirit testifies of your love in our hearts, we trust that the hope we have in you will never disappoint.  No matter what we are facing or have to walk through in life, we place all of our hope in you.  In Jesus’ name. Amen.

“Anchor” written by Ben Fielding, Dean Usher (Hillsong). Link: https://youtu.be/87GYkLfQQ-8

– EK

Romans 5:6-11 (NIV) – “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

“And why not rejoice in God? His people have been reconciled to him by the death of Christ and experience daily deliverance from evil through Christ’s resurrection life, while the end to which they confidently look forward is no longer the outpouring of divine wrath but the unveiling of divine glory. And from first to last they ascribe their blessings to God’s love. It was because of that love that Christ laid down his life for them when they were weak, sinful and totally unattractive. Human love will go to death itself for those who are its natural objects, but hardly for the unlovely and unloving. Yet this is where the love of God shines most brightly: God confirms his love to us in the fact that Christ died for us while we were in a state of rebellion against him. So entirely at one are the Father and the Son that the self-sacrifice of the latter can be presented as a token of the love of the former. The death of Christ is indeed the supreme manifestation of God’s love. What a perversion of the divine character it is to imagine that Christ died for human beings in order to make God love them! That a change in their relation to God is brought about by the death of Christ is clearly taught here and elsewhere; but no change is involved in the reality of God’s love.” [F. F. Bruce, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: Romans, pp. 125-126]

Prayer: Father, how great, how supreme is the love you displayed through Christ! Thank you that through the death of Christ, I have been reconciled to you and now confidently look forward to the unveiling of your glory.  In Jesus’ name. Amen.

“No One Like Our God” written by Ed Cash, Jonas Myrin, Matt Redman. Link: https://youtu.be/gTc5s4DqEDo

– EK

Romans 5:5 (NIV) – “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

Romans 8:15-16 (NIV) – “The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.”

“The NIV’s ‘God’s love’ may also be translated as ‘the love of God’, and this may be understood in two ways. First, as our ‘love for God’ — the presence of the Holy Spirit then creating in us a love for God. Second, it could be understood as ‘God’s love for us’ — the Holy Spirit filling us with a sense of God’s love for us. Two considerations support the latter: (i) In the immediate context Paul goes on to describe the outstanding nature of God’s love for us (Romans 5: 6-11, esp. 5:8: ‘God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us’); (ii) In Romans 8:15-16 Paul says, ‘The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father”. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children’. In this case the Holy Spirit creates within believers a sense of their filial relationship with God, a sense of God’s love for them as his children. “ [Colin G. Kruse, The Pillar New Testament Commentary: Paul’s Letter to the Romans, page 231]

Prayer: Father, thank you that Your Spirit testifies in my heart that I am your child. Would you fill me once again with your love through your Holy Spirit?   In Jesus’ name. Amen

“No Longer Slaves” written by Brian Johnson, Joel Case, Jonathan David Helser. Link: https://youtu.be/f8TkUMJtK5k

– EK

Romans 8:31-39 (NIV) – What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

“It is that love, finally, that comes back again and again, not as an afterthought but as the underlying theme of the entire section.  We cast our minds back to Romans 5:5-11, where the love of God was demonstrated in the death of Jesus, and we realize that we have come full circle.  John Donne, indeed, likened the love of God to a circle, seeing that it is endless.  It rules victoriously over death and life alike, over powers in heaven and on earth.  And since it is love’s nature to bind the beloved to itself, Paul is convinced, and after eight chapters of Romans he might expect that we would be as well, that ‘nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in King Jesus our Lord.’”

(N.T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: Romans: Part One, page 161)

Prayer:  Lord, thank you for such assurance of your love!  Help me to live in the security and power of your love. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

“One Thing Remains (Your Love Never Fails)” written by Brian Johnson, Christa Black Gifford, Jeremy Riddle (Bethel Live version). Link: https://youtu.be/Ot6JKzTSby0

 

– EK

Romans 5:5-8 (NIV) – And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

At the age of 35 years old, after growing up in a Christian home and having even been on a disappointing mission trip, John Wesley reluctantly went to a meeting on Aldersgate Street in London.  As he was hearing God’s word in Romans being expounded on by Martin Luther’s writings, he “felt his heart strangely warmed.” And he recalls being able to receive such assurance of his faith: “I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” Continuing, he said, “I felt that God loved me. I experienced that God loved me. It was no longer something in my head, but something I felt in my heart.”

After this experience, he became a great traveling preacher and from there, he and his brother Charles became responsible for organizing the Methodist church movement.

Prayer:  Lord, may I be undone, changed and renewed today by the power of your love. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

“The Power of Your Love” written by Geoff Bullock (Hillsong). Link: https://youtu.be/Ga6Qtxzd6vk

– EK