“Somebody up there likes me.” This crooning sentimentality — under life’s stress — turns into the mush it really is.
A son or daughter needs more than a vague idea that “somebody in that house likes me.” They need the security of personal love. So it is with the children of God.
We need the full experience of His love….to sense it, really know it. Turn to our text, Romans 5:5-11.
“The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us,” verse 5. The love spoken of here is not just ours for Him but is probably a two-way matter including also our inner sense and conviction of His love for us. Oh to know, really know, that! It doesn’t just come naturally, but only by the work of God’s Spirit.
Notice this love is “shed abroad” within us. Now, these floods of love are not just “feelings”. It is rather a new disposition of spiritual sweetness instead of sourness toward God and others. This character-change is called a “fruit of the Spirit”, Galatians 5:22. If you thirst it can be yours, Isaiah 44:3.
Now, let the Spirit direct us to some proofs right from the Scripture regarding God’s great love for us. The Spirit can use such truth to lift us in love.
I. CHRIST’S DEATH FOR SINNERS
Our text in Romans 5 allows that a heroic man might be found willing to die for a friend. But who is to be found who will die for ungodly enemies? God. Only He.
A prominent Christian business man was once invited to take five minutes to tell a civic club what he felt was the most important fact in the Bible. At first Mr. Yeager, president of the mid-west’s Cortland Produce Company, hesitated. How could he get things to such a point? “In only five minutes how can I share the one most important fact in the Bible?” he debated.
“I’ll be glad to do it,” he finally agreed. The day came and he stood before the businessmen. Here is the sum of his remarks:
“There’s only one Person who really does know me, and that’s God Himself. He knows all about me, my weaknesses, the myriads of things that I would not dare to expose even to my own family. Yes, He knows all about me and here’s the amazing fact — He still loves me!”
Think it through. That is what our text is saying. We aren’t a pretty sight as pictured there: “without strength”…”ungodly”…”sinners”…”enemies”. But He still loves you, died for you, wants you to repent and come home to Him.
Have you ever, with deep thought in full gear, looked for a time at the spectacle of the Son of God in bloody death for your sins? Ah, Calvary, you prove something. God loves me in spite of all.
II. CHRIST’S LIFE FOR HIS SONS
Whenever you meet a Christian who is sad, troubled, uncertain, empty of peace, or filled with anxiety, you are looking at a living contradiction. Such a one needs to study verses 9 and 10.
See the word “now”, 9. Once we have been turned from sin to our Savior, there NOW comes another golden lesson to learn. Look from the “now” to the “shall be”. The very blood of Christ Jesus seals our future. Judgment is passed. It fell once on Him so that we may be spared when we personally accept this gift. Here is everlasting security.
To emphasize this, the Apostle opens verse 9 with “much more then.” If we, while yet in our sins, came to believe at all, then, now that we are sons of God, shall we not go forward in joyous faith? Add verse 10 to this to further drive it home.
This truth accounts for the “joy in God” sounded in verse 11.
Jesus is now alive in heavenly glory attending our needs, and we have status as sons of God. Regardless of the trial, pick up faith. God loves you. Matthew 7:7-11.