Love Never Fails
Colin Melbourne
© 02-08 Born-Again-Christian.info
Three words that give a believer in Christ the only foundation that cannot be shaken. Three words to destroy the power of sin, and pull you from the jaws of Hell. Three words that span eternity from Almighty God to you.
Love never fails. Holy Bible 1 Co.13:8 NIV
If you are hurting, bitter or abused, if you're trapped by circumstances and overwhelmed, if you've sinned, and keep on failing, this message will restore you, heal you, and open your eyes to see how precious and loved you are right now.
What is Love?
The world is desperate for love, hasn't a clue what it is, and looks in all the wrong places trying to find it. They write poems, songs and books about it, without ever knowing what love is. Do you know what it is?
Sinners confuse love with emotion, romance, infatuation, friendship, lust and sex, but those things are as far from love as sea-slugs in the ocean-depths are from the stars.
Every sinner reading this; you still in bondage to sin and Hell-bound, don't you dare leave this site without getting right with God. His Hand is on you now, He wants your life today. Time is short. God has often sent me with the Gospel to people, and it turned out to be the last time they heard it. So pay attention; repent and believe the Good News.
He said, "If you love me, you will obey my commands... This is my command: Love each other."
How To Love God
Ask any Saint, any Blood-washed child of God what love is, and their eyes will sparkle, as they tell you with a surety that comes from knowing Christ as Saviour.
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 1 Jn.3:16; 4:8-10
How To Find Real Love
That is Gospel fact, not human opinion. God's Word, the Holy Bible, tells us plainly that to know God, you must know the Lord Jesus Christ personally, because He is Almighty God in the Flesh. You must accept Him at face-value, receive Him into your heart as Lord, and obey Him: only then you will know real love. There's no other way into Heaven, no other method of removing your sins. Today, God accepts no sacrifice to pay for your guilt other than the Blood of His only Son shed on your behalf.
Jesus said, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No-one comes to the father except through me. You must be born again. Jn. 14:6; 3:7
Perhaps you are pretending that God doesn't exist, revelling in sin doing whatever you chose to do instead of what is right. Many times Christ has sent people to you with His message of love, but you sneered and pushed them away. Thank God He hasn't stopped loving you and left you to self-deception. And He'll not stop loving you either.
What sins have you committed that He was not punished for?
He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:5-6
Love Paid Your Debt
What guilt do you bear that Christ did not shoulder on the Cross?
What sickness has Satan put on you that Jesus did not carry in your place?
He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases. Mtt. 8:17
What oppression sorrow and despair are you suffering that the Saviour did not take in your stead? He took it all, so that you can go free. The innocent Lamb of God bled and died to release you from condemnation, when you repent and believe in Him.
You wanna know what love is? Look at Jesus walking to Jerusalem for the final Passover. The sinless Son of God advancing unwaveringly to certain death, a sinner's death, followed by Hell-fire. Shrugging off fear, doubt, and every temptation, in order to accomplish His mission. Your redemption. That's love. Love for His Father, who told Him to die in your place. And love for His enemies who spat in His face.
Brutal Roman thugs tied Him to a whipping post, and shredded His back with a whip studded with shards of bone and metal. As they drove crude heavy nails through His limbs, remember it was your sin, and my sin that hammered them home. At any time, Jesus could have changed His mind, and called on God to rescue Him because the price of your redemption was too high. But He didn't. While you were His enemy He thought you were worth dying for. He still does. That's love.
Love surrendered Himself to His bitterest foes, and allowed them to ridicule Him, whip Him, crucify and kill Him, and all the time His attitude was;
"You can reject me, mock me, spit on me, lie about me, torture me, crucify and kill me, but you will never stop me loving you."
That's love. And love never fails. Never quits, stops, falls short or fades. If it does, it isn't love, because love never fails. God says so, and He's proved it.
Love is Almighty God committing Himself to you no matter how you respond: unconditional and eternal. It is what you were made for and what you crave whether you realise it or not. God's Word says that what man desires most is unfailing love. Only in Christ will you find it.
Choose Love
God has made His commitment to you, He gave up everything to have you back as a friend and release you from sin, sickness, and Hell. Now He leaves the choice to you to respond by either rejecting Him and His love, or repenting and trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ and following Him.
Humanity is utter failure, corrupted by the sinful nature we inherited from Adam and Eve. That is why we must be born again by genuine faith in Christ. We must receive the nature of God into our hearts and yield to Him. Flesh must give way to God's Spirit, and as that human heart surrenders wholly to God, then He fills it with a river of eternal love that never fails.
Take heart lame sheep, listen to the Shepherd's voice. Obey Him to the end no matter what the cost, and He'll justify you in the midst of your adversaries and problems.
Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.
On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Ro. 12:14-21 Lk 6:27-28
Do not be vengeful, overcome evil with good, not with violence, forgive as you have been forgiven, and His love will never fail. It isn't difficult to do this when you walk in God's Spirit, when you recognize the Holy Spirit nudging you from the inside to love your enemies as He loves them. And when you obey God, those enemies will become your brothers and sisters in Christ, because love never fails.
America's invasion of Afghanistan (and Iraq since then. Ed) with the senseless slaughter and maiming of thousands more victims, (mostly innocent civilians who have never heard the Gospel once. Far more than were killed on September 11th. 2001) is the antithesis of Christianity, and has sealed that wicked nation's Judgement. But there is a far better way than Uncle Sam's ungodly leaders have chosen, there is Jesus' way. The way of love that never fails.
Choose Life
You who have never known such love, Jesus is calling you to Him right now. Whatever sins you have committed, and grudges you harbour, repent and receive the Lord Jesus Christ into your heart, He will cleanse you of all sin, and deliver you from that bitterness. Whatever sicknesses or infirmities you may bear, Christ bore them already in your place, repent and believe the Good News and He will heal you now.
The moment you are willing to turn from sin and believe in Christ, God will open Heaven to you. It is an easy thing for Him to heal and save you when you trust in Jesus. Then He will show you His salvation and you will know the love that never fails.
In His presence there is fullness of joy, and complete redemption for all, through the precious Blood of the Son of God.
Ready for your first steps?
