Praise Reflection (15 July) – Holy Love
2 Corinthians 5:21
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
God is. Exodus 3:14
God is love. 1 John 4:8
God is holy. Psalm 99:5
God’s love is holy. Yet the paradox is that the holy Son of God, who was innocent, pure and sinless, hung on the Cross for our sin taking a punishment he didn’t deserve – for love. The Cross is the place where the depth of God’s unconditional, selfless, merciful love meets God’s holiness and the outcome enables us to live in His holy love, sanctified – despising and avoiding sin and evil out of love for him.
1 Samuel 2:2a
“There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you”
John 3:16
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Isaiah 53: 5-7
“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”
Reflect and Ponder
Looking at all these verses (and any others you wish to look up) ponder on your status now in relation to holiness and righteousness.
How do we maintain our thankfulness for such a gift given to us through holy love?
Everything Jesus gained through the Cross he shares fully with us. How might we share and express holy love to the Lord and others in our everyday lives?
In John 17 Jesus prayed that we would be sanctified or made holy. Believers are “sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all … But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, … For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” (Hebrews 10:10, 12, 14),
Ephesians 2:4-5
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”
2 Corinthians 5:21
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Hebrews 10:10
“…. we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
John 15: 9-13
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
John 13:1b
“Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”
As mentioned in last week’s Praise Reflection we have the incredible privilege of personally and corporately hosting the holy presence. As the people of God, as his holy building, as his bride, let us always remember our first love (Revelation 2:4) and offer to him a holy love. Obedience and surrender to Jesus is the way of holy love (John 14:21).
As we look at the Scriptures above how can we praise the love of our Lord Jesus enough?
Songs
Holy Love – Andy Park
Link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gq-Q6ewEYg
Robyn Mark In the beauty of Holiness
Link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tivOftJVBB0
Prayer
Loving Saviour, loving Lord we praise and thank you for your costly pursuit and rescue of us so that we are in holy relationship with you – for eternity. No one can compare to you. Nothing compares to you. All love comes from you – for you first loved us (1 John 4:19). Since you so loved us we choose to love one another with the same holy love that we have from you. We praise and thank you that when we love one another your love is made complete in us. (1 John 4:11-12)
You are invited to read the following Scripture as a prayer for yourself and then to pray it in your own words for others you know who would be blessed by it. You may wish to pray this Scripture regularly on a number of levels –
- for a different person each week; and
- for our nation that we may be a loving and holy nation.
“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” (Ephesians 3: 14- 21).
You are encouraged to use this Reflection daily over the week, lingering in it and letting the words of Scripture touch more and more deeply.