Lesson 12: God’s Love is Gracious to Help Us Love Him

John 4:16,17,19 "So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the Day of Judgment, because as He is so also are we in this world…We love because He first loved us."

God not only gives us His love, but it is because of His love that we have the ability to love Him in return. You would think that someone who has freely been saved from eternal destruction in hell would naturally want to love the person responsible for doing that. But what we often see, even as Christians, after being a recipient of the grace of God, is that we not only do not want to be obedient to God, we not only do not want to serve God, but half the time we do not even want to love God. To show you how horrible this kind of behavior is, we compare it by looking at another kind of love.

A man who had lost his dog in a forest fire explained how it was his fault. He and his dog had been walking in the forest when he commanded the dog to stay to watch his lunch bucket. A fire started and spread so rapidly he could not return to release the dog from the command – so the dog died, faithful to his master’s command.

Here we have a dog lovingly being obedient to his master even unto death, yet many Christians refuse to love their heavenly Master who saved them from death. The facts are that most of the time we cannot even show the same level of love to God as a dog does to a man, even after all He's done for us!

Another example is a wife married to a tyrant who demands a lot of duties she is to have completed for him at specific times. He requires strict accounting for every cent she spends for everything for the home and family. One day he dies, and after a while she marries another man who is loving, tender and considerate. One day she finds some papers from her first marriage and she considers the demands of her first husband. Then she realizes she is doing the same things for this second husband, but it does not bother her at all, because now she is doing these things out of love rather than at demand.

Many Christians look at their relationship with God as the wife saw her first husband. They think of Him as a tyrant who just wants slavish obedience, or they will be punished. But that is not God! He is not like us. He is gracious! Even though He should treat us like that tyrant and destroy us on the spot for not loving Him, He knows we cannot love Him like He deserves. So, He gives us grace to love Him in return! Talk about the love of God!

God not only saves us by His grace, but He also gives us the ability to love, serve, and obey Him by His grace. When we get a taste of the depths of God's Love and His graciousness towards us, our lives can never be the same.

Thought Question: Do you treat Jesus as a tyrant, or do you treat Jesus with the kindness He deserves?
Verse to consider: Hebrews 12:2