For I am Convinced

Convictions
Over the next few weeks we will look at convictions. What is a conviction and what convictions do we, or should we, hold. In doing this we will look at the convictions held by some of the people in the bible. Why did they hold these convictions, and where did they come from? The first is the conviction of love.

The conviction of Love

Romans 8 is a wonderful chapter in the book of Romans and here we find one of the most well-known and perhaps one of the most amazing verses in the Bible.

Romans 8:31-39New Living Translation (NLT)
Nothing Can Separate Us from God’s Love

31 What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? 32 Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? 33 Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. 34 Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honour at God’s right hand, pleading for us.
35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? 36 (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.” 37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[b] neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Where did Paul get this conviction from? He knew the scriptures and he knew Jesus. Knowing Jesus was important. He was not alone in his conviction of love. The apostle John had the same conviction of love that comes through relationship with God and holding his word in their heart.

Psalm 118:1-6 New Living Translation (NLT)

1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!     
His faithful love endures forever.
2 Let all Israel repeat:    
 “His faithful love endures forever.”
3 Let Aaron’s descendants, the priests, repeat:    
 “His faithful love endures forever.”
4 Let all who fear the Lord repeat:     
“His faithful love endures forever.”
5 In my distress I prayed to the Lord,     
  and the Lord answered me and set me free.
6 The Lord is for me, so I will have no fear.     
What can mere people do to me?

Why do we need to have a conviction about love?

1. God loved us first
Jesus is the embodied expression of God’s love.

John 3:16 – for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son.

1 John 4:9-10 New Living Translation (NLT)
9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved (verb) us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

Both John and Paul had the understanding that love is the very nature of God. God is love. We love because God loved us first. (Differences between verb and noun) Let us love (verb) one another, because love (noun) in from God. 1 John 4:7

These men had the conviction in their hearts that God loved them and gave himself up for them. John had walked with Jesus and seen first had the love Jesus had for people. Despite everything that Paul endured, he never wavered on the conviction of God’s love for him.

It is easy to think when things go wrong that God does not love us or loves us less than others. The truth is that in all things, God’s love is shown and he is love. He cannot be unloving.

So what stops us from taking hold of God’s love for us? Let's remember that no matter the circumstance God is still there, he is still love and he loves us and wants the best for us.

Ephesians 3:14-19New Living Translation (NLT)
Paul’s Prayer for Spiritual Growth

14 When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father,[a] 15 the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth.[b] 16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. 17 Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

How wide
How long
How high
How deep

God’s love is not as incomprehensible to us as we may think, if we will only open our hearts to God, and “put down roots” into his love. A plant when it comes from a seed puts down roots into the ground first to get a strong hold, then, it is able to put up leaves and flourish.

A transplanted tree or flowering shrub, or any plant for that matter, must also put down roots, it must become stable if it is to grow and flourish. Sometimes we are trying to flourish without putting down the roots that will stabilise us and help us to enlarge our understanding of who God is.

How far are you putting your roots down into God’s love?

Paul and John both had roots deep into God’s love and they knew his love and were convinced that nothing, no matter what it was, would ever change that situation.

2. Others will know that we are disciples of Christ because we love others

Jesus said that the single most defining thing that would set Christians apart as Christ followers was their love for one another. This is the reason that the enemy tries to get in and to destroy relationships. Its also the reason why Grace (next week) and forgiveness are so important.

We show the world who Jesus is by the way we respond to each other. This does not mean we are to be always all lovey dovy. That is not what Jesus meant. He meant that our motivation for what we do must be love – agape love – the love of God in us that truly desires the best for others.

So we speak the truth in love – not just saying it, but actually doing it. The context of speaking the truth is that we speak the truth about who Jesus is because we are strong in God and his word, able to live as mature Christians, who love each other and share the truth of Jesus,  growing together in his love.

Ephesians 4:11-15New Living Translation (NLT)
11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. 15 Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.

We work out our differences in a manner that shows love and forgiveness not bitterness and hatred. Notice that speaking the truth in love comes as a result of relationship with Jesus, and with others. We have a right to speak truth when we truly love others, otherwise we speak in judgment not love.

We forgive. Love forgives and keeps no record of wrongs.

1 Corinthians 13New Living Translation (NLT)
Love Is the Greatest

13 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;[a] but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages[b] and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! 9 Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! 10 But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.
11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.[c] All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

I think if we took hold of the truth here, we would see that this is the way God loves and because he loved us we can love this way too.

How are you going in the loving others stakes?

What aspect of love do you find most difficult to practice?

Can I encourage you to allow God to love you and to love others through you?

In our own strength we cannot possibly achieve it all – we would try and fail, but God’s love at work in us and through us never fails.

3. It sums up the whole law
Jesus said that loving God and loving others was the sum total of the law. Everything is based on Loving God and loving others.

Matthew 22:34-40New Living Translation (NLT)
The Most Important Commandment

34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. 35 One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”
37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’[b] 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.

What does he mean by this?

I believe it means that if we have God’s love in us and through us; if we understand God’s great love for us and respond in love towards God; then we will love others in a way that God does. I believe it means that our actions would always place the best interests of others above our own interest and treat people in a way that honours them and respects them, giving dignity, not because it is deserved, but because it is what God does.

Note that it starts with loving God wholeheartedly with everything we have because he is God. His love at work in us then enables us to love others the same way he loves us. And this changes everything. Having a conviction about love means like Paul, we are convinced that no matter what, nothing can separate us from his love and that loving God and loving others is the motivation for everything we do.