The Love of God

By John Huss – Posted on
For a few more weeks we are engaging in a series of messages considering the Love of God described in 1 John. John wrote three books which were encouragement to the early church and appear toward the end of the New Testament. He knows about love as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” He describes and comments on love far more than any other writer.
God is love and gave His Son to be the savior of the world. That is how we know love; we know Love through Jesus. God is love, so His love is different from ours. We can love other people, we can feel love, love is an aspect of our lives. But love is God’s essential nature.

We receive the love of God through His word, through a faith relationship with Him through which the Spirit dwells in us, and through our times of worship. You are encouraged to receive that love by being in worship, studying God’s word, and in prayer!

1 John 3:16 (ESV) 
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
The Love of God needs to be shared. Because there are many people who are living without it. They are living without the grace and truth of Jesus! They are dying without it. Jesus calls us to join Him on His mission. And as a congregation we are moving toward more intentional ways to do that.

Pastor Greg Finke of Dwelling 1:14 was at Mount Olive for training in April. Many of us learned practical strategies for sharing the love of Christ in our “neighborhoods” – where we live, work or go to school. If you were unable to attend, a series of videos with pastor Greg are being facilitated by Brian Knitter during the Adult Education time.

Next we need to put these things into practice. And share our stories. By next month I’ll be sharing about our experience hosting a gathering for our neighbors. We plan to gather people from our street to get to know each other, share a meal and some conversation. We’ll be looking to meet some new people and get to know others we’ve been waving at for a while.

Hope to see you there,
Pastor John