We love because HE first loved us...

"But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me..." Galatians 1: 15-16

Have you ever known the love of God? The love that casts out fear? The love that comes from the Father? The love that overwhelms us with joy? Have you known the joy of salvation... of love unmerited?

I'm not talking about "our" kind of love. The kind of love that is shallow. The kind of love that is dependent on feelings... feelings that come and go. Or a  love that is dependent on happy surroundings, or on returned love, or on success, or even on our own sacrifices.   No, I'm talking about a LOVE that is  far greater than that... the LOVE of God.

GOD IS LOVE. And that love was shown to us through  His son, the  LORD JESUS CHRIST. God offered up the Lord Jesus Christ  to be the PERFECT sacrifice for our sins. A sacrifice was needed... to cleanse us from our iniquities.

I'm often overwhelmed with God's love. Why I didn't need to pay a price for my sin against God... for I owed Him! Yes, I was even born in sin (Psalm 51:5). But how could I pay the price? I needed something far greater than any sacrifice( tainted with sin) I could offer. What could make me clean before a HOLY God?... nothing but the blood of Jesus Christ. The perfect sinless sacrifice.... shown through His death on the cross. His burial. His resurrection. Now, that is true love.

Perfect love casts out fear.  True love... the love of God.

And so I rest in His Perfect Love for me. Not my love for Him... but in His love for me. And through His love for me, I can have power through His Spirit... and quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

I rejoice in the free gift of salvation!

" The sacrifices of God, are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." Psalm 51:17

O Perfect Love Hymn

O perfect Love, all human thought transcending,
Lowly we kneel in prayer before Thy throne,
That theirs may be the love which knows no ending,
Whom Thou forevermore dost join in one.

O perfect Life, be Thou their full assurance,
Of tender charity and steadfast faith,
Of patient hope and quiet, brave endurance,
With childlike trust that fears nor pain nor death.

Grant them the joy which brightens earthly sorrow;
Grant them the peace which calms all earthly strife,
And to life’s day the glorious unknown morrow
That dawns upon eternal love and life.

Hear us, O Father, gracious and forgiving,
Through Jesus Christ, Thy coeternal Word,
Who, with the Holy Ghost, by all things living
Now and to endless ages art adored.

May God's sacrificial LOVE be yours today!

~Ellie