Dauphin Way Baptist Church, Mobile
One of the great privileges I have at our church is teaching the college Sunday School class.
Anytime you get almost 100 college kids together, there is bound to be romance in the air.
For example, my pastoral intern is enamored with a young lady and is quick to list her various and sundry attributes. He tells me how pretty she is and how funny she is and what a great Christian she is. All of these qualities and more attract him to her. He finds her very attractive.
Oftentimes, we think that God somehow works like that with us. Maybe He loves us because we are special or attend church or we are nice to our parents. God is not like that.
His affection for you has nothing to do with any attractive quality you might have — no matter how noble it may be. God’s love for you and me is based completely and only on His amazing grace.
There is nothing in us that makes Him love us.
Nonetheless, in spite of our sin and rebellion and our own selfishness, God loves us. It is because of this love found in Jesus Christ that we can know God. John wrote in 1 John 4:10, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
What a great liberating statement of God’s astounding love. Even while we were God’s enemies, dead in sin, God loved us and provided a way for us to know Him through Jesus Christ. Jesus took our place on the cross and gave us His righteousness.
Because of what Christ has done, God no longer looks at us as His enemies but through our faith in Christ, receives us as His children.
Your knowledge of God comes only through a genuine faith in Jesus Christ.
As you think about your relationship with God, I hope you will remember that the privilege of knowing Him is not something we deserve but something that comes from His bottomless fountain of marvelous grace.
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