1. God's Atoning Love
John 3:16-17 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."
God's love isn't one of a condemning love. He gave his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for us. That truly is the ultimate expression of love.
Romans 5:1-5 "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
2. God's Calling Love
1 Peter 2:9 "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."
Did you catch all those things in the verse above where we have been called out, and what we are called? A chosen race? A royal priesthood? A holy nation? A people for his own possession? Those are all the things that we have been called. With those names comes great responsibilities. We are to proclaim of his excellencies because we have been taken from that darkness and brought into the light!
We are also heirs. We moment we accepted that free gift of salvation we became heirs of God. How amazing is that?
John 10:28 "I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand."
Hebrews 13:5 "Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, I will never leave you not forsake you."
Nothing can take us out of God's hands. He promising always to be with us.
3. God's Redeeming Love
Romans 8:3-4 "For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit."
Galatians 3:13 "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us--for it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree--"
God redeemed us from that horrible curse that we would have had to taken on. He knew that we wouldn't be able to take it on ourselves, so he took it for us. True love at its finest.
4. God's Justifying Love
Romans 3:23-25 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins."
I want to zero in on a little phrase in that passage, "Justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus". I love grace as a gift, because that's all it really is. It is totally a gift. He didn't have to give it to us, but because he loves us and he justified us he wants to give us that gift. Just remember this little phrase "By Grace Through Faith"
5. God's Adopting Love
Romans 8:15 "For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry 'Abba Father!'"
We were adopted into the royal family when we accepted Christ as our personal Lord and Savior. How amazing is that adopting love he has for us.
6. God's Sanctifying Love
Hebrews 10:10 "And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."
He was set apart for our lives. He sanctified us when he gave his life for ours. We died so we could live.
I can't really remember how this quote went along with the lesson, but it really stuck out to me. "Sometimes we confuse his will for us to be chores."
7. God's Glorifying Love
1 John 3:1-2 "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see hi as he is."
We are children of God. That is something to rejoice over. I get so excited when I think that he chose me to be one of his and be in his family. It blows my mind that he would want someone as dirty and sinful as me for his child..
I hope those 7 different kinds of love were as encouraging to you as they were to me!
xoxo, <3 Katelyn
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