God Is Love

Usually when I sit down to write a post for Barnabas Notes, I work from a particular verse or passage that teaches a lesson of encouragement. This past week, however, as I thought about what I wanted to write this week, I tried to back up and look at more general encouraging thoughts from Scripture. The first thing that jumped out at me was the love of God. What could be more encouraging to anyone than realization of the love of God? For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16). That says it all, doesn’t it? John puts it another way that is just as good: In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another (1 John 4:10, 11).

Maybe that is too general for some. We are used to people trying to encourage us by saying that God loves us and if we will remain faithful, He will take care of us in the end, but what about right now? What is He going to do for me right now? Well, I hate to appear insensitive, but He has already done it. He loved you (already) enough to let His Son die for you. He has done His part, now you have to do yours. I know, that still does not answer the question about what is afflicting you right now in your life...or does it?

The duty of all Christians is to grow toward spiritual maturity (2 Peter 3:18). For us to mature as we ought, we need to mature in our faith and in our hope, among other things. Faith and hope are what will get you through the tough times. You are not going to have times as tough as Jesus did or the first century Christians who were slaughtered simply because they were Christians. Yet, because of their faith and hope, they were able to endure.

Many people work very hard these days to provide for their families. And they are able to provide not just a living (a place to sleep, clothes to wear and food to eat), but many luxuries, too. However, without God, no one has achieved any real success at all. What good does it do to work yourself to death and make wash tubs full of money if you and your family are lost in the end? Jesus asked that same question this way: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36). If you want to be successful, truly successful, in this world, you must achieve spiritual success. You must be a faithful child of God. Anything less is failure, even if you live in the biggest palace on earth.

I know the pain you feel is real and God is not ignoring your pain and neither am I. I wanted to encourage you this morning with more general thoughts simply to show that even the most complicated problems and their solutions are simpler than you think. True, spiritual, eternal success really does boil down to simply living for God and not living for yourself. And the solutions to the things that afflict you right now, are really just as simple as giving yourself to God and overcoming them or letting those problems grow out of proportion and overcome you. Yes, God is love (1 John 4:8) and He wants you to love Him and live for Him. He wants that kind of success and peace of mind for you because He loves you. I want it for you because I love you, too.