Week Eleven-Day Four: The Love of God

“May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.”

2 Thessalonians 5:16-17 

God’s love is uninfluenced which ultimately means it does not depend on our good deeds. His love for us is tenacious which ultimately means we can’t lose it. And His love is tender which ultimately means it is exactly the salve that our hurting souls need.

That’s awesome isn’t it? But this morning I’d like us to take our contemplation of God’s love a step further. Let’s think about the relationship between God’s love for us and our hope.

I had a reminder recently of how important hope is. A young person came to talk to me. She talked about how hopeless she felt. “I don’t know where to turn. I don’t know what to do. I have no idea where to go.” It was more than aimlessness. She was feeling a profound emptiness/lifelessness. I suspect you’ve been there. Remember? Maybe you’re there now. So, let’s all agree that hope is absolutely critical to our well being.

Now that we agree, we’re motivated to ask what does God’s love have to do with our hope? Does the benediction Paul puts at the end of his letter to the Thessalonians (see above) cause any connections to be forming in your mind?

Look with me at Romans 5. Let’s unpack this short paragraph together and see if it might give us some more insight.

³ Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴ perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵ And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Romans 5:3-5

1. Paul gives a progression of growth that ends with “hope.”Where does that progression start?
2. What does this progression have to do with glorying in our sufferings?
3. How does perseverance produce character?
4. How does character produce hope?
5. The phrase “put us to shame” in verse 4 is sometimes translated “disappoint us.”This seems overly obvious to me.Hope doesn’t disappoint us.Of course – its sorta the opposite of disappointment.But Paul takes his insight in a completely different direction.Why doesn’t hope disappoint us?
6. So what’s the connection between God’s love for us and our experience of hope?I don’t know if there is a right answer here, but regardless of your answer we’re beginning to get a hint of the importance of our experience of God’s love.We need to know that He loves us, don’t we?It is related to (however you defined that relationship) our sense of hope.Good grief, we can’t do without it!
7. Of Paul’s phrase “poured out into our hearts,” one commentator said, “It suggests a free flow and a large quantity – in fact, an inundation.”[1]Evidently, God knows how important it is that we know He loves us.He wants to inundate us with it.
8. Finally, notice that our experience of God’s love is described as a part of the regular work of God’s Spirit in us.

BEFORE YOU START YOUR DAY

1. Once again, thank God for His love for you.
2. Ask Him to show you today how much He loves you.Don’t skate past this.If this is a regular part of the work of God’s Spirit, then this knowledge is available to you.Ask.
3. Take a minute and review Isaiah 26:3.“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.”