God Is?
1 John 4:16
One day, C.H. Spurgeon was walking through the English countryside with a friend. As they strolled along, the evangelist noticed a barn with a weather vane on its roof. At the top of the vane were these words: GOD IS LOVE. Spurgeon remarked to his companion that he thought this was a rather inappropriate place for such a message. "Weather vanes are changeable," he said, "but God’s love is constant.” "I don’t agree with you Charles," replied his friend. "You misunderstood the meaning. That sign is indicating a truth: Regardless of which way the wind blows, God is love."
If you were told you could only give a one word definition for God, how would you define Him?
God is…love, and the only love God knows is unconditional.
Jesus is…love, and the only love God knows is unconditional.
Holy Spirit…love, and the only love God knows is unconditional.
It might seem elementary, God loves you with crazy love. This love reaches into the depth of despair, This love reaches the poorest and the richest. God’s love is 100% available.
The Song of Solomon, is types and shadows of Jesus with His church.
God offers you unconditional love. His love is complete.
God the Holy Spirit, comforts, teaches, stands by, He's our advocate. Romans 14:17, He— gives righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
1 John 4:16AMP We have come to know [by personal observation and experience], and have believed [with deep, consistent faith] the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides continually in him.
Q&A—Do you trust in the love God has for us?
God doesn't love us because of who we are; God loves us because of who He is.
Truth:
When we succeed, God says, “I love you.”
When we fail, God says, “I love you.”
When we have faith, God says, “I love you.”When we doubt, God says, “I love you.”
Again, 1 John 4:16TPT We have come into an intimate experience with God’s love, and we trust in the love He has for us. God is love! Those who are living in love are living in God, and God lives through them.
AW Tozer said, What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.
Therefore, I submit to you that, “If love is not the first thing that comes to mind, you have the wrong impression of who God is.”
Sure, His love includes tough love. We might not enjoy those tough talks at the time.
Just remember, God always has our best interests at heart.
Romans 8:28TM That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.
This is what every believer has to understand, Verse 28, follows the last few verses, speaking of the Holy Spirit’s groans/prayers/love for us.
Paul points out that the Holy Spirit in a definite. He’s a must have to be born from— above.
When the Apostles Paul wrote the book of Ephesians he was pastor of Ephesus for 3 years. This was the Apostles longest tenure as- pastor.
Ephesians 3, is all about God’s love. Paul prays this powerful prayer over the entire body of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he intended for it to be received:
Ephesians 3:14-21TLB When I think of the wisdom and scope of his plan, I fall down on my knees and pray to the Father of all the great family of God—some of them already in heaven and some down here on earth— 16 that out of His glorious, unlimited resources He will give you the mighty inner strengthening of His Holy Spirit. 17 And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts,
living within you as you trust in Him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love; 18-19 and may you be able to feel and understand, as all God’s children should, how long, how wide, how deep, and how high His love really is; and to experience this love for yourselves, though it is so great that you will never see the end of it or fully know or understand it. And so at last you will be filled up with God himself.
And I can’t leave out, Ephesians— 3:20-21TLB Now glory be to God, who by His mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of—infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes. 21 May He be given glory forever and ever through endless ages because of His master plan of salvation for the Church through Jesus Christ.
Again, God’s love isn’t based on your performance. It’s not based on how good you are. God’s love is—God’s love.
On November 1, 1937, a $60,000 grant initiated a study at Harvard university that is still active over 80 years later. 268 sophomores were selected for the study, among them a 20-year-old John F Kennedy. All participants have been medically examined, psychologically tested, and personally interviewed every two years since the study commenced, producing case files that are as thick as an unbridged dictionary.
For nearly 4 decades Dr. George Valiant was the keeper of the holy grail. In his book, Triumphs of Experience, he opens the vault and reveals some of the secrets. For example, the greatest predictor of happiness later in life is warm relationships as a child.
However for me, It’s the doctors five-word- summary of the study that I find most striking. He reduces the 80 year, $20 million dollar study down to these words; Happiness Is Love.
In Vaillant’s words, “Happiness is only the cart; Love is the horse.”
As believers, when we walk in love, think in love, talk in love and do in love—Happiness is Love!
Psalm 144:15KJV Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the Lord.
Think about it, When you’re really committed it makes you feel satisfied, full, and you’ll go around thinking and maybe even singing—It is well with— my soul.
As believers we have more-than-enough arsenal to defeat satan's tactics:
Our first arsenal of offense is—
1. We are dearly loved. Gods love is our prize; His love has been endowed upon you.
The apostle Paul wrote in, Romans 5:6-8TLB When we were utterly helpless, with no way of escape, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners who had no use for Him. 7 Even if we were good, we really wouldn’t expect anyone to die for us, though, of course, that might be barely possible. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
In everything we do, we should display love. God’s love is called a—great love.
Think about this, The One who loves me perfectly has taken my sins for me, He paid the price for my redemption because He loved me.
Lamentations 3: 21-23AMP But this I call to mind, Therefore I have hope. 22 It is because of the Lord’s loving-kindnesses that we are not consumed, Because His [tender] compassions never fail. 23 They are new every morning;?Great and beyond measure is Your faithfulness.
Our second arsenal of offense is—
2. Jesus. He died once and for all your sin.
Jesus states in, John 16:23NKJV “And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you.
Jesus has given you full permission to pray with His name.
You can pray in Jesus name because of, Colossians 2:13-15AMP When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh (worldliness, manner of life), God made you alive together with Christ, having [freely] forgiven us all our sins, 14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of legal demands [which were in force] against us and which were hostile to us. And this certificate He has set aside and completely removed by nailing it to the cross. 15 When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities [those supernatural forces of evil operating against us], He made a public example of them [exhibiting them as captives in His triumphal procession], having triumphed over them through the cross.
The battle is in your soul, which is made of your mind, will and emotions.
Satan attacks the mind.
Paul teaches us in Colossians 2, that everything offered against you has been completely removed by nailing it to the cross. Jesus. He’s our superstar.
3. Our third arsenal of offense is—The Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 6:19AMP Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is within you, whom you have [received as a gift] from God, and that you are not your own [property]?
The Holy Spirit has been entrusted to you for the purpose of growth. He desires for your inner-man to be full. He’s all about customer satisfaction. He’s your helper.
Ephesians 3:16 that out of His glorious, unlimited resources He will give you the mighty inner strengthening of His Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit desire—is to be fully installed or engaged throughout every facet of our life.
Verse 19, You are not your own property.
Within the text, 1 John 4:16, teaches, as we abide in love, we’re abiding in God. God and love are inner-changeable.
The Holy Spirit has been given to empower you, to strengthen you, to give you the ability to witness.
Once more, Ephesians 3:16NIV Paul prays that out of His (Jesus’) glorious riches He (Jesus) may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being,
God is….? Love is happiness, Happiness is love.
Benediction.
