Your True Reflection预览

You Are Loved:
The Greek noun “love” is ἀγάπη (agapé) and refers to benevolence, goodwill, and esteem. Agapé love is divine love that shows the preference of God for what He has chosen.

Love is an overused word that has lost its meaning for many. Of course, we know God loves us; we have heard this statement so many times. But do you really believe it?

Picture someone in your life you really truly love. You would do anything for them, possibly even give your life if you had to. Well, God loves us a LOT more than that. You probably find this excruciatingly difficult to comprehend. I think we all do!

Ephesians is my favorite book in the New Testament. Maybe we shouldn’t have a favorite, but it’s mine. Why? Because its theme is identity—our identity. This is the core of the purpose of Paul’s letters—to tell us who we are to God because of what He has done. In the first chapter of Ephesians, the word He or Him (meaning God) is mentioned thirty-eight times! It tells us what He did, not what we did.

Even more, Ephesians 2 depicts the state we were in and what we did before we knew Christ—both of which are not good. God did all these miraculous things for us, and what have we done? Just read:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. —Ephesians 2:1 (NASB)

What we did caused death to come into our lives. Something dead cannot come back to life—with the exception of God and Jesus.

Because God is in control of all life and we are not, we needed His help. Rescue looked impossible for us, and, in fact, it was impossible before Christ. But here are the two words that changed everything—BUT God:

But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. —Ephesians 2:4 (NASB)

The words “But God” signify a new beginning that was not possible without Him. These words bring all of creation under the power of its Creator for our hope and salvation. Paul spends these verses explaining the wretched state of mankind apart from Christ.

What was God’s motivation for this? Love! He loves you! Allow God to love you:

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. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us. —1 John 4:10-12 (NASB)