The World Is A Big Funeral Home

 Dear Saints:

This world in essence is a big funeral home. We are all dead in sins and trespasses. People are going around in the funeral parlors, looking into the open caskets and saying, "Oh she looks good or he looks good."  How good can a dead corpse look? It is all lies and liars. ALL HAVE SINNED AGAINST GOD.

Except Christ by His grace comes and breathes new breath of His Holy Spirit and makes us alive; and remove us from the casket and from the funeral parlors, all we are doing is gradually decaying and will be buried at some point.  

The message of the Gospel is dead man or woman made alive. It is not an improvement project but a total start-over. A dead person cannot wake himself up. This is where God begins and pours His Love.

God is love, period. Love is therefore the highest and the supreme. If God is love, how can we love another if God is not in us and loving others through us? It is therefore impossible to humanly love another person without God.  That to me is the point Apostle John is making in the whole Letter or Epistle of first John. 

Before we go too far, we must define the word being used here as “love” because it’s not the same as we often say: “I am in love or fallen in love with this woman or man”; and etc.

This “Love” used in this Epistle is the highest form of love - Agape love.

“Agape” is one of several Greek words for love. When the word “agape” is used in the Bible, it refers to a pure, willful, sacrificial love that intentionally desires another’s highest good.”

Wow! So, God desires to do in and for me the highest good. He withholds nothing from me. God’s highest good is Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. “If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” Romans 8:31.

As we continue our study, let’s hear directly from Apostle John in 1 John 4:7-16:

^“7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸ He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹ In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. ¹⁰ 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. ¹¹ Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

¹² No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. ¹³ By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. ¹⁵ Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. ¹⁶ And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

Brethren, Apostle John, is trying to explain the Gospel to us. If we don’t understand this then we don’t understand the GOOD NEWS OF THE GOSPEL.

I must confess that I am struggling to comprehend it all and I will have eternity to grasp it which means I will forever live to grasp, understand and enjoy and bask in this LOVE WHICH IS GOD HIMSELF.

To me this is the sum of it: That God without anything to gain made a conscious decision to love a rebel/sinner like me who already was destined for destruction and everlasting death and separation from God which is the reality and definition of hell. 

Apostle Paul also said the same thing “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins…But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)… it is the gift of God, ⁹ not of works, lest anyone should boast. ¹⁰ For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:1-10.

Apostle John is not cajoling us to love another but rather saying if you are “born of God”, then love is in you and love is who you are. You can’t live but live out the love in you which is Christ Himself. We were “created in Christ Jesus for good works”  not for salvation but a product of salvation– that is why we are still here on earth.

I am convinced that we don’t love because we have not accepted and fully comprehended the GOSPEL. As such, telling others about Christ means nothing to us and it just passes our ears when we hear it, thus we do nothing about it. This is not an indictment but a true assessment and reflection of where we are.  We are asking God to help us understand and comprehend Him and His love for us in the person of Jesus Christ. You can only bear fruit of the seed in you.

Is the SEED of CHRIST in you? Then, bear the fruit of love (Galatians 2:20, 5:22-26). I thank God it is by and through the Holy Spirit that lives in me who has allowed me to know, understand and trust in Jesus, my “PROPITIATION”, the only sacrifice that pleases God. This is the GOSPEL. NO BOASTING WHATSOEVER!

The best form of our expression of God’s love is to do what He told us, to “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.” (Matthew 28:18-20). The best you can love and give anyone is to give the person CHRIST when you introduce him or her to the GOSPEL.

We will continue on this next time so please read and digest 1 John 4. For now, let’s bask in God’s love and love one another by His grace that saved us. Amen.

Is this true in you; "born of God and knows God''?  If  not, call on God today to open your eyes to see and know Him, repent and trust Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Amen.