So a question that I've been giving a lot of thought to lately is this:
What does God's love look like?
This past week or so that we have been here in Nicaragua, God has really just been showing me how much He loves His people. I think that we often take for granted the way that God loves us and those all around us. Or maybe we don't always take the time to even see it in our everyday lives. We tend to get so caught up in what we're doing or where we're going that we forget to see and share God's love.
But we have seen the love of God here this week. He's been calling His people into relationship with Him – 6 people so far to be exact. These 6 people have asked the Lord to be their Savior, to have a love relationship with Him. They've been hungry for Him. They've been searching for Him. They've had a hole in their hearts that could only be filled with the love of Christ…and this week that hole was filled!
We've also seen how the Lord's love draws people back who once walked with Him hand-in- hand and chose to step away. But God's love conquered that. We had the opportunity to pray for a man named Ramon who did just that. He stepped away from God, but the Lord called him back. His love for this man was stronger than anything this world had to offer. We were able to share scripture with this man and pray hard for him…and watched God do the rest. The change was visible in his face. Where there was turmoil, there's now peace. Where there was uncertainty, there's now confidence in his identity in Christ. Where there was guilt, there's now a man that has been forgiven and freed because of the blood that was shed for him on the cross. He now knows the love of the Lord in a real and intimate way!
And then there's Angela. Oh man, does the Lord love her! When we walked into her house, my heart just screamed "She needs God's love!". So we prayed and we prayed and we prayed for her. She has been without hope for so many years. She's been sitting in the same chair, looking at the same floor, not speaking hardly at all for way too long. But God wanted her to know His love. We read and quoted many verses to her about this love and continued to pray. And after about an hour, the change was visible in her as well. She came to understand that she was the Lord's beautiful creation. She was His daughter that was created in His image and in His likeness. She came to understand that because the Lord loved her, He sent His Son for her so she could live a life in relationship with Him!
I'm in awe of the love the Lord has for us. I'm amazed at how He continually calls to that deep place within us that desires that relationship with Him. How great is His love for us!
"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 John 4:10
To be continued…..
