God Is LOVE!

By Pastor Jeff,

1John 4:7-8, “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”

God is Love!, whenever we make that statement we have those who question it that’s true, they ask, if God is love why is there such misery in our world today? We hear of Tsunami’s, earthquakes, tornado’s blizzards, there are wars, terrorists’ bombings, shootings, Christians being martyred by the hundreds. You see sickness, death, cancer striking the young and old, and the question is if God is indeed love, how can this be happening?

Atheism is the fastest growing I hate to call it a religion, but that’s what it is, in the world. In the US the rate has grown from 6.7% in 2007 to over 22%, that’s astounding and I think people look at what is happening and think if God created this world and He claims to be love then they rather not believe at all.

We need to realize that the world we live in is not the world God created, in Genesis chapter one God proclaimed it was “good” seven times and finished with this claim in verse 31, “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” So what gives?, Genesis 3:1-5, “Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

It was not God who brought evil in the world but it was man! If we got what we really deserved, we’d be in serious trouble, Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” and what is the penalty for sin? Ezekiel 18:20, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die…” But because God is love, Jesus took this penalty from us, John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whomsoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life” 

I think what shows this Love clearly is that under the law outside the camp was not a very nice place, Leviticus, 4:11-12, “And the skin of the bullock, and all his flesh, with his head, and with his legs, and his inwards, and his dung, Even the whole bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood with fire: where the ashes are poured out shall he be burnt.” Lepers also were kept outside the camp and when a person was sentenced to death they took them outside the camp to stone them, so this is a place of defilement, where disease, waste, and death dwelled, and this is the very place that Jesus Christ was crucified, Hebrews 13:10-12, “We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.”  Oh, how He loves you and me! God is LOVE!

Picture care of; http://www.bethelgospelradio