Have you ever played a word association game? If I say to you “chocolate” what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Word association games are something that I used to play all of the time. And as humans we tend to associate things with words all of the time. If I say to you “love” what do you think of? What if I say “God’s love”? Many of us associate the love of God with ideas and thoughts of human love. We may associate with with a really good feeling of human love, or we may associate it with a really bad feeling of human love depending on our personal experiences… but most of the time we think and behave and have ideas of the love of God really not being much different than the love of a human.
However I want to share with you the truth of the love of God. His love is far superior and much better than even the best love that any human can ever offer. His love is divine. His love is all-encompassing and His love never fails. Today in this study we will be exploring the Divine love of God and how it is so much better than the love of humans. And by seeing this love, you will be able to approach God with a new attitude, free from fear, free from uncertainty and free from the shifting-sand of human ideas and emotions.
God is generous. He goes above and beyond even our wildest expectations when given the opportunity. We often have trouble believing this about God though. A typical thought that I hear people say is that 'if God is so generous, why doesn't He give me more?', however this question exposes a failure to see the true character and nature of God. We have been indoctrinated with an idea that God is sitting up in Heaven demanding to be served and that He must be properly pleased or entreated before He doles out rewards, and even then you had better not expect much!
However this is a totally inaccurate idea and view of God. God is not up in Heaven demanding to be served; He is instead closer than you even realize, and instead of demanding to be served, He is eagerly awaiting the opportunity to serve you! Can you believe that? The God of the universe, has actually willingly taken the position of service, for your benefit – and He actually becomes a gainer of glory by serving you! This is what we will be taking a look at today. How God serves, how you can receive it, and what the truth about God's generosity really is.
In John 14:6, Jesus makes a statement to Thomas that was quite profound and controversial – especially for His primarily Jewish audience at the time. His proclamation that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life is still controversial today, but there is more meaning to what our LORD has said, than only declaring that He alone gives us access to the Father.
So today we will be examining the totality of this statement made by Jesus, to see all of what He meant when He made this bold declaration, and how His statement applies for us as believers.