[Lee Grzywinski]

Hello faithful readers!

God has spoken! I love how Packer describes God’s Word as “an instrument of fellowship…to enable us to know Him so that we may love Him.” I also like his division of the types of speech: law, promise, and testimony of Himself. Believing what He says about Himself, and believing His promises enough to obey His commands, is exactly how we get to know Him. Everyone is under an obligation to do all these things (believe and obey), but the fact that we do believe and obey is what places us in relationship with Him. And what a way to end his wonderful exposition: “Why does this description fit so few of us who profess to be Christians?…You will find it profitable to ask your conscience, and let it tell you.”

Chapter 12 opens up with the same lament I have expressed many times: people misunderstand what it means that “God is love.” Many use it as a cover for sin, as if God is love to the exclusion of His righteousness and justice (“an indulgent, benevolent softness, divorced from moral standards and concerns,” as Packer puts it). But thank God that we know the love of God! Let us bask in His love for us! Packer is so right when he points out that God identifying Himself with us is how we know His love.

John 13:34–35 (ESV) A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

[Lynne Mazza-Hilway]

Packer continues to present some simple truths of God in a heavy and profound way. These two chapters definitely hit home for me. As is common in the teen years, I, searching for truth, accepted Jesus when I heard He was The Truth, the living Word of God. “Other qualities of God like His reliability, stability, trustworthiness and self-consistancy attest that His words are true. They are the index of reality.”
God has dominion over nature -“speaking to our environment, ‘Let it be’, determining world events as well as the (nurture) or engaging of our minds and hearts in fellowship so we can walk together in a love relationship. Our souls were made to ‘run’ on the practice of worship. Christians are to aspire to have our whole lives brought into line with the Word of God ”

The love of God is ” shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost; He floods our inmost heart in a deep and overwhelming way.” God is love. I personally experienced the strength, power and peace these living words minister when I was seriously sick with the covid virus. Not being able for days to talk, swallow, think, focus or even watch TV, all I could do was cry out in prayer and I’m sure it was the Spirit promoting me to meditate on the words, God is love. These words were all I fed on and they sustained me physically, emotionally and spiritually; His amazing presence was with ne, praise Him! Definitely more than just a head knowledge or emotion, “God’s love expressed itself by the gift of His Son as our Savior and mediator who can bring us to God. His end in all things is His own glory yet His own own final happiness won’t be complete till all His beloved ones are finally out of trouble.”

[Theresa]

God is love, and that is so misused today – even by fellow Christians. We can’t “outlove” God, and we don’t know better how to love others if it contradicts with the truth of His word. And I am so thankful that God can speak nothing but truth. That we can trust and rely on His promises for us. “True Christians are people who acknowledge and live under the word of God. They submit without reserve to the word of God written in the Book of Truth, believing the teaching, trusting the promises, following the commands. Their eyes are upon the God of the Bible as their Father and the Christ of the Bible as their Savior.” That’s the kind of Christian I want to be and continue being until He takes me home. God’s love for me greatly humbles me. Because I know me and I know how inconsistent I can be and how much I fail. “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 in the beloved, but the love of God is free, spontaneous, unevoked, uncaused. God loves people because he has chosen to love them.” It reminds me that God’s love is based on who He is and thankfully not who I am or who I am trying to be. When I choose to trust that love and meditate on that love and remind myself that He chose me as one of His beloved – it brings me to my knees in worship.

[Matt Aceino]

Praise Him! We have a King/God who speaks only truth engaging our hearts and minds. His word instructs in order to know Him and we can’t really know Him without loving Him. Knowing Him and actually having a relationship by command and invitation. Mind blowing and praise causing bringing about true humility and godliness as we tremble at His word.
Heap upon these realizations the fact of God’s love for me as a normal daily experience of my Christian faith and I have to examine my reactions to things and people in the brilliant light of Gods love for me. Am I showing it or not? Do I really believe it?

[Author]

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