Dear friends
The Confirmation Service was certainly memorable, and I hope it will continue to be something significant in the memories of those confirmed. I’m sure we were all struck by Bishop Peter’s reminder to each section of the congregation in turn, that ‘God loves you’.
Now let me plant a niggling question in your minds: where does the Bible tell us that ‘God loves you’?
As far as the New Testament is concerned, it tells us far more often that God loved us (in the past tense). For example, ‘God so loved the world’ (John 3:16). ‘We are more than conquerors through him who loved us’ (Romans 8:37). ‘I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me’ (Galatians 2:20). ‘This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us’ (1 John 4:10). ‘We love because he first loved us’ (1 John 4:19).
And what is my point? That the love of God cannot be separated from the cross of Jesus. God loved us at the cross; and that sacrificial and sin-bearing love is the fullest expression of love in the whole of history. Galatians 2:20 needs to be quoted more fully: ‘The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’ Jesus gave himself for each one of us on the cross, and we are called to live our lives by faith in him for that very reason: his self-giving was the supreme and unequalled act of love.
So love is never just a gushy feeling; it’s about action. If we want to know whether God really loves us (in the present tense) we do not need to look inside ourselves to see if we are able to feel his love. No, we need to look back to the cross and see how much he has loved us (in the past). And if has shown that love to us in the past, then he certainly still loves us today. And that’s why our whole lives are to be lived by faith in him.
And if love is about action … how are we each going to show love in this coming month?
With all best wishes – James.