The Assurance of God's Love
BY KENT SPARKS
Romans 5:5-10 HAVE YOU EVER HEARD people talk about the way they experienced the love of God being poured on them, like light beams shining from heaven and trumpets going off? Do you feel spiritually deficient not having ever experienced such euphoria?
Let me assure you that while some people may have such experiences, that is not normal for everybody. If you don't have such an experience, it doesn't mean that God doesn't love you or that He loves you less. Nor do you need to beg for more of God's love.
In the opening verses of Romans 5, the apostle Paul says that as a result of our relationship with God through faith in Christ, we can rejoice even in the face of the most difficult trial. That's because we have hope in our heart and this hope will never disappoint us because God has given us His love. Then, in verses 5-10, he explains how God assures us of His love.
Before we go to Romans 5, though, let me first explain why we shouldn't measure God's love by our feelings.
1. It is impossible for a person to feel someone else's love for him.
Some of you are probably saying, "There goes Sparks again. He's going to make a fine issue of definition out of nothing." But bear with me. This is an important fact.
Sometimes, for example, when I'm working in my office, I would suddenly have this wonderful love
for my wife welling up in me. And I would think, "Gosh, what a wonderful wife Linda is! I love her so much." But at that moment, she doesn't really feel this love I have for her.Only after I have communicated it to her by telling her so over the phone, or bringing her some flowers, or giving her a big kiss does she know intellectually that I love her. And as that knowledge stimulates an emotional response in her, she feels loved.
The love of God works the same way. We don't feel God's love. We can only know that He loves us. And our emotional response is proportional, among other things, to the knowledge we possess.
2. Our perception of God's love can be skewed by doubt.
Many people simply don't believe that God loves them. That is especially true of those who were once deeply hurt. They have a difficulty trusting anybody, and God's no exception. In fact, because God is intangible, they find Him that much harder to trust.
To get out of that spiral, we need to understand that God is not like other human beings. And to understand that, we need to look at, and relate to, the grace of God as it is revealed in the person of Jesus Christespecially His sacrificial love on the cross.
3. Our understanding of God's love can be distorted by spiritual immaturity.
We read in I John 4:16: "And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us." Notice that John uses the phrase "we have come to know"; not "we know". It means that our knowledge of God's love is a lifelong growing process.
So, we need not be discouraged when we see others having a better comprehension of God's love. God is in process with you even as He's in process with them. And don't try to hurry it. You're right where God wants you to be today.
4. Our perception of God's love is affected by our temperaments and health.
Some people are more intellectually driven than others; they are less emotional and temperamental. For that reason, they don't feel love very much. They just believe it. That's the way they're designed.
If you are one of such intellectual people, don't think that you're spiritually inadequate. Don't judge yourself by other people's experience. God has made you different from others.
Likewise, our emotional state and our physical condition at any given time also have some bearing on the way we respond to the knowledge of God's love.
5. Our perception of God's love is often dimmed by sins in our life.
Whenever we quench the Holy Spirit, we also quench His ministry in our lives. That includes His ministry of enabling us to believe God's Word and of reminding us of God's love.
Even when we are disobedient, however, God loves us just as much as He always has. But His Spirit has withdrawn His influence. That's why the Bible uses the word "quench". When you quench someone's spirit, you cause them to withdraw and to close up and to be tight.
But once we confess our sins, God the Holy Spirit opens up and fills us again. He permeates us with the experience of knowing that He's leading and directing our life again.
Thankfully, through Romans 5:5-10, God assures us of His love in four ways:
I. Through the Ministry of the Holy Spirit.
We read in verse 5:And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given us.We do not have to seek this love of God, you see. We already have it. The love of God has been poured out within our hearts. That verb form in the Greek means: a specific action took place in past time and its residual consequences continue to live on. In a specific moment in your past, God infused your heart with His love.How is this love poured out within our heart? Through the Holy Spirit, who was given to us. The verb form here means simple action. It happened one time. At some point in your past, God gave you His Holy Spirit. And when did that happen? The moment you were saved.
We know from Romans 8:9 that if we don't have the Holy Spirit, we are none of His. By definition, to receive the Holy Spirit is to receive salvation, because He's the one who brings the life.
What Paul is saying then is this. At the moment of conversion, the Holy Spirit took up residence in the heart of every Christian. When He did that, He also poured out God's love into every Christian's heart so that God's love continuously abides and permeates the heart of the Christian.
II. By the sacrifice of His Son.
We read in verses 6?8 of Romans 5:For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would ever dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.God assures us of His love by sacrificing His Son. It is an objective proof of His love. At the right time, He sent His Son into this world. More than that, He had Him crucified on the cross to pay for our sins.So, when we question God's love, God says, "Don't ask me, 'Do you love me?' Just go look at the cross. Look what I've done for you. I've demonstrated my love by having My Son die there for your sins. I've given you a historical marker. It's an historical reality. You wonder? Just go look!"
Unconditional act. This demonstration of God's love was an unconditional act. We don't deserve it. We could never earn it. And there's no way we could do anything to move God to put His Son on the cross. He was moved to do so by His love for us only.
That's why Paul says that Christ died for us when we were helpless. God helped us. We couldn't help ourselves. We needed help. God doesn't help those who help themselves. He helps those who can't help themselves.
We were ungodly, so God made us godly. We were sinners, so God paid for our sin. He helped us in our time of need. If we ever doubt His love, therefore, all we have to do is gaze upon the cross. It's God's historical, objective proof that He loves us.
III. By delivering us from hell.
We now read in verse 9:Much more then, having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him.You wonder if God loves you? Paul says here, meditate upon the wrath of God. Meditate on hell, where the fire is never quenched and the worm dieth not. Think about all those people who will spend eternity there, and realize that you will not have to go there.Not that you don't deserve it. Every individual that's ever been born deserves to go to hell because everyone has sinned against the holy God. And God demands that all sinners be punished.
Even though we all have earned God's wrath, Godbecause of His love for those whom Christ came to earth to savehas provided a way of escape so all those who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ can be saved and experience the love of God in their own life. So think about the horrible punishment that Christ endured on your behalf so that you don't have to spend eternity in hell.
IV. By making us eternally secure.
There's a fourth way God assures us of His love. We read in verse 10:For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.The point Paul is making here is this: If God was willing to kill His Son while you were an enemy, an ungodly, helpless sinner, do you think He's going to treat you any worse now? No, now that you've been reconciled to God, how much more sure can you be that your salvation is guaranteed.
God says, "Don't ask me, 'Do you love me?' Just go look at the cross. Look what I've done for you." You see that phrase "shall be saved"? That's in the future tense. That has yet to happen. In other words, it's talking about the security that the believer has. Because Christ rose from the dead and is alive, every believer can be certain that he will ultimately receive his resurrected body and go to be with the Lord in heaven forever.
APPLICATION
Having learned the four ways God demonstrates His love for us, how can we personally experience that love on a daily basis? How can you, as an individual, strengthen your perception and knowledge of His love?1. Make sure you're walking in the Spirit.
If it's the ministry of the Holy Spirit to pour out His love in your heart, it's important that we're walking with Him. That means confess your sins. That means obey His leading. That means seek Him in prayer. Live in contact with the Spirit. Develop your relationship with the Spirit of God.
2. Meditate and reflect upon the Passion narratives of the Gospels.
If Paul says look at the cross, then why don't we read about the cross in the New Testamentthose are the
passion narratives.I remember going to a church that seated 4,500 people. There was a guest speaker that day. This man begins to preach on the cross out of Isaiah 53. He spoke of the tremendous sacrifice that Jesus made for believers. He was crushed for our iniquities. He was chastised; our chastening fell upon Him.
And this is no exaggeration, everybody in that place had tears streaming down their face. It was absolutely one of the most moving experiences I've ever had in my life. And all he was preaching on is what it cost Jesus Christ to die on the cross for you and me.
Meditate upon the cross and all that's involved.
3. Think of the horror of hell.
Think of the terrible punishment that all unsaved people will have to suffer throughout eternity and you cannot help but realize how loving the Lord Jesus Christ was when He went to the cross to die for your sins, and He even did that when you were a sinful enemy of His.
Focus also on His patience, His loving kindness that endures forever. The psalmist does all the time. He talks about the loving kindness of the Lord that is everlasting, the loving kindness of the Lord that is everlasting, over and over.
If you've ever kept a log of the sins you ask God to forgive you for, you'd find out as you look through your journal that you've written down the same sins over and over. And suddenly the patience of God with you and His loving kindness and His tenderness and His love is brought home in the most profound sense. And all you can do is thank Him.
4. Make sure you know for certain that you're saved.
Then, study the scriptures until you have an unshakable conviction of the doctrine of eternal security, and meditate on that secure thing that God gave you at the expense of His Son.
God loves you so much that He's decided to pull you out of the mass of humanity and put you in heaven. He's going to conform you to the image of His Son. He will make it happen because He is God the Almighty and nothing can stop Him. That's security.
Follow these four steps and you will have increasing confidence of God's love for you. It's tremendous. It's awesome. o
Rev. Kent Sparks is pastor of Beach Cities Community Church, 20422 Beach Blvd., Huntington Beach, CA 92648.