R.E.A.C.H.

This is Love

The young man sent his fiancée a valentine card that read, "My love for you is higher than the heavens and deeper than the sea. My love for you is so great that I would go to the farthest ends of the earth for you. I would climb the highest mountain, cross the deepest valley, go through the darkest forest; I'd go to the moon and back just to be by your side. Then he scribbled at the bottom: "I will come by and pick you up on Friday. If it's raining I'm going to stay in the car and honk the horn so you know that I'm here. I don't want to have to get out and get wet."

Apparently love in words can be different than love in action. St. Paul writes: "For this reason I bow my knees before the Father…that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend…what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge." (Ephesians 3:14ff) He talks about how impossible it is to truly comprehend how much God loves us. This incredible love that God has for us is not mere words. St. Paul writes in Romans 5, "…but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." St. John writes in his first epistle, "See the love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are." (1 John 3:1) John goes on to write that in our lives, our love should not be only words, "Little Children, let us not love in words or talk but in deed and in truth." (1 John 3:18) God does not simply show love. It is His essence. God is love. I would invite you to take a little time and peer deeper into riches of God's love by reading St. John's first epistle, especially chapters three & four.

The assurance that God is love requires faith in the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ, God's Son. Our Confessional writings state that when forgiveness of sins has been received, then we are truly certain that we have a God that cares for us. We are able to love, because God first loved us.

Pastor David P. Loeschen

February 2012