The Love of God

I don't fully understand how much God loves me, or how He loves me.  Tonight at church, Pastor Pat spoke on the love of God and how it was like how we breath.  We inhale and exhale.  From a medical background, I feel like I can go a little deeper with the simile.  Inhalation and exhalation is like the love of God coming into us (inhale) and us showing that love to others (exhale).  When we inhale, we breathe in good air, and in the alveoli, our bodies bring all the components of air into our bloodstream particularly the oxygen in the air.  Our bodies use that air to keep cells alive and functioning properly.  When we exhale, we get rid of the carbon dioxide and the "waste" products of living as far as gases are concerned.  Its kind of like that with God's love.  We take in His love for us, that perfect love that rescued us from our sin.  It's kind of like having a tab at a restaurant and it being paid in full (propitiation) by someone we don't know, can't see, or touch, just because they love us.  Our bill for sin has been taken care of by someone who loves us and that is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, by dying on the cross and taking my sin on Himself.  That's the part that keeps us living.  The part that gives us hope and keeps us excited about Him is the fact that we do have that love flowing through our veins.  The only difference is that instead of getting rid of byproducts, we in turn, show the love that we've been shown to others.  When we do that, and we show grace and mercy to others, especially people who hurt us, we are showing the world God.  Its not easy, nothing about that is easy and it's completely against human nature, but it is what we as Christians should do.  The beauty of all this is that God loves us and we get to show that love to others.  Use it!

As the Beatles sang, "All you need is love"

If you want to read the verses, go to 1 John 4 and 1 Corinthians 13 (a portrait of God's love)

As David Crowder Band sings in their song "How He Loves Us":

He is jealous for me, 
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree, 
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy. 
When all of a sudden, 
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory, 
And I realise just how beautiful You are, 
And how great Your affections are for me. 

And oh, how He loves us so, 
Oh how He loves us, 
How He loves us all 

Yeah, He loves us, 
Oh! how He loves us, 
Oh! how He loves us, 
Oh! how He loves. 

We are His portion and He is our prize, 
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes, 
If His grace is an ocean, we?re all sinking. 
And Heaven meets earth like an unforseen kiss, 
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest, 
I don?t have time to maintain these regrets, 
When I think about, the way?