Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. I John 4:7-10
The Gospel Begins With Love
In Matthew 28:18-20, we read the command Jesus gave us that we are to carry out as his disciples. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. We are to spread the Good News -take the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Of course we need to be disciples to make disciples. One of the greatest characteristics of God that is also essential to being a disciple and making disciples is love. God loved us so much that he made a plan to save us before we were ever born, even before the world was ever created. The Gospel began with His love for us. It was fulfilled with his son’s death on the cross to pay for our sins, and his resurrection that promises us eternal life with him should we accept this priceless gift. As his disciples we are carrying out his command in love – to go and make disciples of all nations.
God loved us so much that he sent his son to earth as a baby, a tiny savior for the whole world. He grew like all of us and as an adult he began his ministry here on earth with his disciples, discipling and teaching them so they would be ready to continue his work after he was gone.
While he was with his disciples Jesus demonstrated everything they needed to know about making disciples. They got to see Jesus himself live it out right before their eyes. They saw him healing, saving, but most of all they felt and saw his love in action. Jesus loves so perfectly and unconditionally. They saw him love people that no one else would have anything to do with. They saw him heal people no would even get close enough to help. They saw him sit with sinners, tax collectors, young and old, rich and poor. They saw him give living water to the woman at the well who was so filled with shame that she waited until the hottest part of the day to go to the well. He waited there to meet her. He meets everyone exactly where they are because that is what perfect love does. His heart was broken for them and he loved them.
Obedience to God calls for complete surrender. We cannot learn to live and love like him without complete surrender. That means we get in the trenches with people who need Jesus. It does not mean that we pick the most appealing mission trip, the easy service project, or the one that makes us look like the best servant. Loving others like Jesus and sharing his Gospel is messy. It means we sit with lost people in their muck, and we love them and share the good news that is for them too. We bring light and hope, seasoned with salt – and love. If people do not feel loved or that we do not care about them they will not care about what we say.
Have you completely surrendered in obedience to God?
Is your heart broken for someone you know who is not saved, running from God, or rejecting the Gospel?
Do you show them love or do you stay as far away as you can?
What has God called you to do in that relationship – have you really asked him? They need to hear the truth of the Gospel. It may not be for you to do this… but it might.
Maybe he has called you to go on a mission trip. Whatever he is asking of you remember it began with his love for you. Have an open heart to what he is calling you to do.
