"God’s love is more than a feeling. It is a decision to live for the happiness of another. Some define it as a decision for another’s happiness even at your expense. “Agape love is not primarily an emotion,” writes Paul Billheimer, “but aggressive, benevolent, sacrificial, outgoing goodwill. It is the soul of ethics.” This is how God loves us. He longs for our happiness with all the intensity of divine jealousy and all the power of omnipotence, even while, in our unredeemed state, we are “by nature objects of wrath” (Eph 2:3).
....In summary, the cross displays the glory and wonder of God’s love only to the degree that we see our unworthiness of that love and our inability to give him anything. With all this in mind, J.I Packer wrote:
“It is staggering that God should love sinners; yet it is true. God loves creatures who have become unlovely and (one would have thought) unlovable. There was nothing whatever in the objects of his love to call it forth; nothing in us could attract or prompt it. Love among persons is awakened by something in the beloved, but the love of God is free, spontaneous, unevoked, uncaused. God loves people because he has chosen to love them—as Charles Wesley put it, “he hath loved us, he hath loved us, because he would love” (an echo of Deut. 7:7-8)—and no reason for his love can be given except his own sovereign good pleasure.”"
1 comment:
What a wonderful idea, to share what God is teaching your though books. I just might have to try it! Just found your blog, enjoyed splashing around and getting drenched in God's goodness. I'll be back.
Blessings from Costa RIca,
Sarah Dawn
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