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Commentary on "Love Stories"
Day 4: Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - God's Love
After showing us from Exodus 20:5 that God is jealous over his people, the lesson author goes on to state the following on page 99 of the Standard lesson:
The Bible openly teaches that God deeply loves individual human beings. This is not an easy concept to grasp, only because the concept of God, the Creator of the universe, isn’t an easy concept to grasp.
To state that God's love for us is not an easy concept to grasp, “because the concept of God … isn't an easy concept to grasp” is fundamentally wrong. Knowing “God, the Creator of the universe”as a concept is not taught anywhere in the Bible. God is presented as a loving, caring, nurturing, protecting and giving God, who Christians have the privilege of referring to as Father, not just a concept. Some of us are able to understand and experience the love of God, at some level very well, while at times due to life experiences some find God's love more difficult to see. We only need to look to the life of Jesus to see the love of God in action.
Finally, the author makes the following statement in this lesson:
… God has not only declared His love for us, He has shown it to us in many powerful ways. The greatest, of course, is the Cross and what happened there. What more proof do we need of God’s love for us than what we have been given at Calvary?
Christ crucified is definitely the most loving act our God could do to provide forgiveness and salvation to us, thereby displaying his love for all. Looking to Calvary we see the redeeming act of love God has given us. However, we must turn to the Holy Spirit to have that love poured into our lives. Romans 5:5 tells us:
God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Only when one has been born again of the Spirit does one receive the full measure of love from God “poured” into our hearts. It is not sufficient that one look to Calvary to see love demonstrated, one must be born again, or the love shown on the cross is meaningless.
Have you been born again? Read John chapter 3:1-21 in it's entirety to see Jesus' teaching to Nicodemus about being born again. Once you've been born again you can receive God's love in full measure through the working of the Holy Spirit in your life.
Copyright 2012 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised March 17, 2012. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Casa Grande, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.
The Sabbath School Bible Study Guide and the corresponding E.G. White Notes are published by Pacific Press Publishing Association, which is owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist church. The current quarter's editions are pictured above.
Official Adventist Resources
Standard Edition Study Guide Week 12
Teacher's Edition Study Guide Week 12
Easy Reading Edition Study Guide Wk 12
Search the Complete Published Ellen G. White Writings
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