Pastors

Superfluous Style!

Chris Mayfield 06/21/08

Superfluous. Crazy word huh? But a perfect word when you think about the love that God has for you. Dictionary.com has this definition: more than enough; overabundant; extra. That is Jesus! That is the Gospel! Pauls motivation we see in 2 Cor Ch 5 for service was many things we see in this chapter, like the judgement seat of Christ, the power of the gospel, and the commission of the Lord, but we also see in vs 12-16 the "love" of Christ.

In verse 14 in the ESV it says, "For the love of Christ controls us..." Now this could be the love that we have for Christ or the love that Christ has for us. Paul here though is talking about what Jesus has done for him, so this would lead me to believe that this means the love that has come from Christ. So sit and think how wondrous this must be, to understand that God has mad love for you. So much so it "dominates" you and moves you to serve Him by loving others the way he showed love to us. He gave. He gave us life, he gave us the Word, he gave us the way to live, he gave us everything. Now let us do the same. Superfluous style! 

Brad Brogden said @ 8:19pm 06/21/08

When I think about how I deserve hell and separation from God for eternity, and He instead gives me life, it totally dominates me! Not only life, but life as a son of God, a friend of God, a co-heir with Christ! It's definitely superfluous in that He could have just said, "Here, I'll let you live a little while and then you can just go peacefully into nothingness when you die." That would have been loving, to keep us from hell; while still not giving us heaven. But no, He gives us EVERYTHING!! Ridiculous!

John 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends."

Romans 5:8 "but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Ephesians 2:4 "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the GREAT love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved-"

1st John 3:1 "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are."

Praise God that He loves in abundance!

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