June 8: What Manner of Love?

Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. Psalm 119:97

The LORD’s greatness and love are portrayed all throughout the writings of Scripture. From the beginning, He identifies Himself as the Creator, the Source and Sustainer of life. The physical and spiritual laws given by the Lawgiver work harmoniously and synergistically. He is the Giver of every good and perfect gift (James 1:17). In addition to the gift of life and its sustaining laws, we are also given gifts that are not necessary to sustain life. Such gifts are abundantly ‘over-and-above,’ intended only to enrich it. But apart from genuine love for the Creator and our fellow human beings, the extra gifts can tragically become the main focus and morph into full-blown idolatry.

The most essential gift for the continuation of life—that is, life without end—is Christ Jesus. He is the Foundation and Cornerstone of the entire economy of the people of God. In the great school of obedience, He is the Principal, Teacher, and Example.

Immediately after the disobedience of Adam and Eve, the LORD’s role as Redeemer was revealed. It is the recognition of our need for redemption that brings into focus the great theme of salvation. Right here, in the Garden of Eden the object lesson of substitutionary sacrifice was established. The system that serves as schoolmaster to bring the attention of the sinner to Jesus rests upon the slain lamb: the innocent one who dies for the guilty. This is the object lesson that typified the Savior to come.

The entire ceremony had been prepared by Yahweh ahead of time. “All who did service in connection with the sanctuary were being educated constantly in regard to the intervention of Christ in behalf of the human race. This service was designed to create in every heart a love for the law of God, which is the law of His kingdom. The sacrificial offering was to be an object lesson of the love of God revealed in Christ.” from SELECTED MESSAGES by Ellen G. White

It is growing love for Jesus and what He has done on our behalf that enables us to understand the gravity of sin, defined as lawlessness (1 John 3:4). He would have His children to continually gain more comprehension of the divinely magnanimous work of the Son of God in laying down His life for the salvation of the world. As this happens, our personal relationship with Him deepens, and we willingly—day by day—learn to lay down our preferences in favor of the eternal law of love. As we become partakers with Christ, the world’s glitter grows “strangely dim” along with our attraction to it (see Hebrews 3:1,14; 2 Peter 1:4).

Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 1 John 3:1