Loving You While You Get to Were
From Crazy Love
by Pastor Nave on February 24, 2015
Crazy Love: Loving You While You Get to Were is the second segment in this series, focusing on Romans 5:8:
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (KJV).
Last week we learned how we have opportunities every day to show God’s love to others. But, in order for us to operate in God’s love, we need to understand how God’s love operates in us. We need to get to a point in our relationship with Christ, and a place in our life where we can extend love to others.
Every day is a new day to seek and renew a relationship with Jesus. Every day is a new day to discover ways to live our life according to His Word. Getting right and living right is a process that we must endure on a continual basis; God works on our hearts as much as we allow Him to. But, getting to a place where we can allow His love to work through us is an ongoing process.
If we live our life for Christ as an event-driven follower, we will have intense moments of fellowship with Him followed by intense messes in our own life. Living for God is a journey, a race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1). We aren’t perfect, but need to follow after God to get ahold of that crazy love that He’s extended to us, so we can let it work in us (Philippians 3:12). We need to keep moving ahead!
God loves us while we are learning and ironing out the wrinkles in our life. We are going to rise up and we’re going to fall, but Jesus’ love is there to cover us along the way. In our key verse, Romans 5:8, Paul said that God commendeth—He demonstrates—His love toward us. God loved us while we were yet sinners! His crazy love reaches to us through our distractions, disappointments, and disobedience. We need to learn to allow God’s love to operate in our life. His love and grace isn’t to cover up what we’ve done wrong, but is the avenue where we can learn from our mistakes and plan for future success. When we allow God to love us, we can then pour out that love on others.
We cannot mistake God’s mercy for God’s approval. He has dictated in His Word how we need to live, and God doesn’t go against His own Word. The unrighteousness will not inherit the Kingdom of God (I Corinthians 6:9–10). Scripture tells us that such (the unrighteous) were some of us, “but [we] are sanctified, but [we] are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (I Corinthians 6:11, KJV).
God love loves us where we’re at, but it is also His love that moves us beyond where we’re at. God’s love moves us into a position where we can look back and see where Jesus brought us from—where we are and where we were. God wants His love to us to get to a place so we have a were.
In Luke 19:5 we can read about a tax collector named Zacchæus, who took advantage of his role. He taxed the people beyond what they owed and became very wealthy. It was an encounter with Jesus that brought him forward to a were moment. Zacchæus said he would restore back to the people four times what he had taken (Luke 19:8):
And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this hours, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:9–10, KJV).
God’s love will get people to their were. Today is the day of salvation, which is different from our were.
We look at God’s love many times as acceptance, but this is incorrect. God doesn’t love us for who we are. God love us, but He hates who we are. He hates what the devil has done to us; He hates the unrighteous life we live apart from Him. But He love us.
Scripture tells us that love is kind (I Corinthians 13:4), but kind is not always comfortable. Revelation 3:19 says, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent” (KJV). God, through His love, tells us that we can’t stay the way we are. We need to repent, turn around, and head toward a life of righteousness through Him. Chasten means “instruction for learning.” God’s love wants to tell us what’s wrong in our life, to teach us so we can get better. God’s chastening is to help us make better choices, live a more abundant life, and make it to Heaven to spend eternity with Him.
God has promised to love us through our journey. He will tell us the truth. To understand God’s love, we need to understand that love is about embracing what’s best for us. Love may not always look good, it may not always feel good, but it’s right!
God love us and wants to celebrate our were. “I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth…” (Luke 15:7, KJV). When we continue on our journey to accept God’s love, to apply God’s love, and to emulate God’s love in our life, all of Heaven rejoices. God wants to celebrate our were, but more importantly, wants to celebrate where we are now in Him. God has a plan for our life (Jeremiah 29:11) and wants us to operate in His love. Today, let’s allow God’s love to be poured out in our life and see His abundant crazy love going to work.
