1 John 4:10 --- In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
After talking with the Lord this morning in prayer we moved into studying 1 John 4:10. Immediately I see the word PROPITIATION. We came across this back on March 15 when studying 1 John 2:2 and drawing the Kintsugi bowl.
1 John 2:2 --- He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
What God led me to back on March 15th was such a powerful understanding of just what it meant for Jesus to be our propitiation. In it the amazing love of Jesus Christ was unfolded as to exactly what He did for us. He didn't just atone for our sins, pay the price that was owed (death) on our behalf, but He also gained back favor for us with God the Father! He didn't just pay the price then tell us to run along and not bother God anymore. NO! He paid the price and restored relationship and standing with the one our sin was against.
Okay so I could just keep going all day long about what Jesus has done for us and never run out of gas but there is something else in today's verse.
Back in 1 John 2:2 the focus was on Jesus, but today we pull back the focus a bit. Just meaning Jesus is still right there, but now we can see Father God in the picture as He loved us so much, He sent that propitiation, His only Son Jesus Christ. The perfect love of the perfect Father, the very one our sin is against, arranged the means to pay the price and to restore our relationship!
What kind of love is this? Honestly just sit and think about it for a second. Does it truly make sense to you? Can you actually grasp the depth of it?
This is a love we cannot truly, fully fathom. I think our brain catches little wisps of understanding it, like a sweet scent in the air, but true agape, selfless, sacrificial love is just overwhelming and at times to us humans nonsensical. Our human love always falls into quid pro quo territory. Just meaning whether we realize it or not our love usually expects something in return. Sometimes consciously we expect something in return and sometimes subconsciously. Subconsciously we can love with what appears to be the sincerest of loves but deep inside there is a desire for approval, recognition, acceptance, etc...
Okay, so back to this movie scene I've got in my head. It's a super close up shot of this beautiful Kintsugi bowl (Kinsugi is a broken bowl that is put back together with gold filling the cracks), then the camera slowly pulls back to reveal, God the Father's hand holding that beautiful bowl out to us.
If it's hard enough to wrap our heads around what Jesus did for us, now here is this image of Jesus being held out to us by Father God. Both knowing what this means, yet both loving us so much they willingly proceed forward. Just wow... I mean wow.
That's a whole lot to ponder on for this Saturday morning. I pray with all my heart that you would be the Berean and dive into His word. Go on an adventure with Him and see what He tells you in this! Sometimes the adventure is climbing over some plain old rocks, sometimes it's standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, in awe, trying to take in things so beautiful and immense we just can't look away. This is one of those days for me. Wow.
Have a blessed day today.
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