“More Important”

"More Important" 

    It is more important to know that God loves His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, than it is to know that He loves us.

   "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God" (I John 4:15).

    Salvation involves faith in the relationship that eternally exists between the Father and the Son, as revealed by the Holy Spirit.  We can believe that God loves us without approaching the threshold of genuine faith.  Many unbelievers hold to such a notion that may impart an emotional sense of comfort and security.  However, the Lord Jesus plainly stated the truth: "If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins" (John 8:24).  That to which the Lord refers in this warning is His Sonship to God the Father (John 8:16-19).  

    The reason for this God-centered and human-humbling truth involves the fact of our Lord's singular role as "the high and lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity" (Isaiah 57:15).  God alone has forever existed - "from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God" (Psalm 90:2).  Thus, He exists as the heart of all reality, and the essence of truth.  Created beings exist by His determination, both in our origination and the sustaining of our being.  We must therefore know and understand our Lord as He is, responding to the fact of God as the light and life of existence.  "In thy light shall we see light" (Psalm 36:9).  We must therefore know Him as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit because this is who and what He is.  We must know Him in terms of the loving, mutual devotion that exists in the character, nature, and way of the triune God.  Sin gravely blinded the human race to this Truth of all truths.  Salvation imparts new hearts and eyes to behold the love of the Father for His Son, the Son's devoted response, and the Holy Spirit's revelation of such wonder and glory.  Thus, the Gospel commands that we believe Jesus to be the Son of God as the truth whereby we are saved from our sins.

    Certainly God loves us with an intensity that "passeth knowledge" (Ephesians 3:19).  We do well to grow in the realization and reception thereof.  However, such understanding begins with our awareness of the triune devotion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to one another.  We were made to behold this beauty of holiness.   Perhaps the reason humanity so cherishes love stories involves the truth that we were made to know the loving reality that forever exists in God.  Salvation results from faith in such glory, and growth in our salvation results from increasing knowledge of such love.  As the Lord Jesus plainly stated, "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou has sent" (John 17:3).  Let us plant the truth deeply within our hearts: it is more important to know that God loves the Lord Jesus than it is to know that He loves us.  

"In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him."

(I John 4:9)

Weekly Memory Verse (an easy one this week!  But vital.)

   To live is Christ.

(Philippians 1:21)