Love Of God

We serve an awesome God.  His love is so vast I believe it will take all of eternity to begin to plumb the depths of it.  The love of God has substance to it. It has length, and breadth, and depth and height.  It is something we can send our roots down into and have as a foundation in our lives.  It is something that cannot be known with our minds.  It is beyond being known by mental assent.  It can only be known by experience, by experiencing God Himself. God is love. 

It is only as we daily experience the love of God and really allow it to impact the depths of our being, that we can really love others.  All love really originates in God.

We can only truly love others with the measure of the love of God that we have experienced ourselves.  We cannot give away something we do not have.  Love gives.  God so loved that He gave His only begotten son. 

These are a few of my thoughts today about the love of God. 

Ephesians 3:16-21 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; ¹⁷ That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; ¹⁹ And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. ²⁰ Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, ²¹ Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

1 John 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

A PREPARED BRIDE

Revelation 19:7-8 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. ⁸ And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.

Ephesians 5:25-27 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; ²⁶ That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, ²⁷ That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

Jesus is returning for a prepared bride.  He is coming for a bride that has allowed herself to be cleansed and purified.  Jesus is coming for a bride that is without spot or wrinkle.  The preparation is done by the bride in submission to God. She has made herself or allowed herself to be made ready. The preparation isn't always easy.  To remove spots may take a little scrubbing.  To remove wrinkles generally takes heat and pressure.  But the end result is glorious. 

This bride will be prepared in relationship with God mostly in the secret place.  She will continually grow in intimacy, out of which ministry in the earth will be done in union with Christ to establish His kingdom on the earth.

He said be ye holy for I am holy.  This is not something that the bride can do by works, it comes by surrender, daily surrender and dying to self.

Jesus is looking for a bride of the same heart and substance as Him.  She will be one with whom He can share His heart, one through whom His glory will be manifest, one through whom He can live and move and have His being.