Compelling Love

Our God is our Creator, Redeemer and King, and He desires to have a personal love relationship with His people. To understand and believe that He is our Creator is a first step forward:

Genesis 1 (NKJV)
“¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” … ²⁶ Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; …” ²⁷ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Psalm 100 describes a people in relationship with their Creator; Revelation 4:11 declares that He has created all things for His pleasure, and that includes you and me!

Psalm 100
¹ Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands!
² Serve the Lord with gladness;
Come before His presence with singing.
³ Know that the Lord, He is God;
It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

Revelation 4:11
¹¹ Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

After man’s fall from grace because of disobedience, God spoke to the deceiving serpent, and announced that the “Seed of the woman” would bruise his head, pointing to the Redeemer who would be born of a virgin. The devil would bruise His heel (pointing to His atoning death on the cross).

Genesis 3 (NKJV)
¹⁵ And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”

Job 19 declares, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth”; Isaiah 53 gives further prophecies about the coming Redeemer’s atoning work.

Job 19
²⁵ For I know that my Redeemer lives,
And He shall stand at last on the earth;
²⁶ And after my skin is destroyed, this I know,
That in my flesh I shall see God,
²⁷ Whom I shall see for myself,
And my eyes shall behold, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!

Isaiah 53
⁴ Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
⁵ But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

In the fullness of time, Yeshua, Jesus, the Son of God came in the flesh fulfilling these Messianic prophecies, as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Jesus taught that whoever believed and received him would be born from above and have everlasting life. He is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.

John 1
¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. ⁴ In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵ And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. ¹¹ He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. ¹² But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: ¹³ who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. ¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

²⁹ The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

John 3:16
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

John 10
¹⁴ I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. ¹⁵ As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. … ²⁷ My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. ²⁸ And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.

Our Creator and Redeemer is also King of kings and Lord of Lords:

Revelation 17
“¹⁴ These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful.”

In Ephesians 3, Paul prays that believers would come to know the fullness of God’s love in a very personal way.

Ephesians 3
¹⁷ that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— ¹⁹ to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

David Krause, dhkrause@neteze.com, https://compellinglove.net/  1/17/2016