Letter To Our Children
by Pastor Joe | March 16, 2022 | Letters To Our Children
March 23, 2022
Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.
Anna Bartlett Warner (1820-1915)
Hello Friends.
I suspect many children and adults know the song, Jesus Loves Me. Written in 1860 by Anna Bartlett Warner with some help from her sister Susan, from the novel Say and Seal. I also suspect there are times when people struggle with the assurance of God's love. Maybe you do too.
Here are two great reasons that we do not have to. One from the Bible, the other is from the personal experience of a Ukrainian Pastor in the middle of a war zone. Let's begin as we should with the Bible.
The Bible
First, Christ loves you because Jesus loves the Father, and the Father gave Him the forever command to love His people, and Jesus always obeys His Father. (John 13:34-35; 6:37-40; 10:15-18)
Second, Christ loves you because of the fruit-bearing ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Jesus was overflowing with the Holy Spirit in His earthly ministry. It couldn't be measured. When He entered heaven, Acts 2:33 says, Exalted to the right hand of God, He has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. This means He received more grace and more mercy in a manner far exceeding His earthly ministry. Therefore, He is even more loving, more forgiving, and more patient from heaven towards sinners like me.
Third, Christ loves us because He is love. God is love, says the Apostle John, and Christ is love covered in our sin as He hung on the cross. He is even more concerned for our salvation than we are.
Fourth, in Christ loving Himself, as is right, He loves us. The best example the Bible gives is in marriage. To love your spouse rightly is to love yourself rightly. Your love begins for them and returns to you.
Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her.
In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
Personal Experience
Here is a fancy term it might help for you to know- Experiential Preaching. The meaning of Experiential Preaching is simple, what the person is preaching or saying from the Bible has been learned and personally experienced by them. The Bible is the authority, not the person. But, the person is saying, they have personally experienced what the Bible says is true.
The following beautiful example in this video is a Pastor from Ukraine. In the middle of a terrible war, he is personally affirming because he has learned, first hand, he is loved, God is with His people in Ukraine, and will not leave them.
You are incredibly and perfectly loved.
God bless you this week in all things.
Pastor Joe