God Is Love

Dear Weekly Readers!  

God’s Peace!   Well, we have returned from our trip to India!   Please pray that God would use the Word spoken there to His Glory and to the saving of souls.  Thank you for your many prayers for us, and please continue to keep praying for the spreading of God’s Word throughout the world!

God Is Love

The late Carl Kulla

And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. 1 John 4:16

John, the Apostle of love, declares to us, Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10) By this knowledge of love we confess and make known: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) In truth, Christ is the love of God given to us. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. (Philippians 2:8) Through His death Christ has crowned His love toward us, as He testifies, Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13) Beautiful have been the feet of those who have preached the gospel of peace and brought glad tidings of good things, wherein God hath committed to us His love. For God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

Already in the awakening of the conscience to the knowledge of sin we experience God's love. For His holy and righteous law, which brought a knowledge of sin, was of His love when it humbled us unto repentance. The knowledge of sin coming before grace, God's love encircles us before we feel or receive its savor. The righteousness of God, being called to serve God's love, is not therefore one and equal with God's love, but both are called to aid one another. For as God's righteousness cannot be without His love, neither can His love be without His righteousness in the fulfillment of the words of John: My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. (1 John 3:18)

Having come to the knowledge of sin, God's grace is extended in the loving Savior, whom we receive in the forgiveness of sins. God loves us and has hidden the treasures of His love in Christ. God's love coming to us in Christ consumes and fills us. Then do we begin to love God. We love him, because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19) In loving God, we love our brother. And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also. (1 John 4:21) Christ dwelling in us and we in Him, we love both God and His children. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. (Luke 10:27) By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. (1 John 5:2-3)

Love being of God, given and comprehended in Christ, is as far as the knowledge of love goes in the hearts of many. So long as the heart and conscience are not disturbed, being soothed with sweetness and grace, then love reigns. If love requires obedience, does love then cease? When we receive the grace of God, neither love nor its work ends here, for the experience of grace is only the beginning of the work of love, which is daily extended and received. We are preserved and kept as God's children when we abide in His love. Love keeps us by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

Not only are words of consolation and comfort of God's love, but also every word of correction and instruction. For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth… (Proverbs 3:12) As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten… (Revelation 3:19) Likewise, every burden, trial, sorrow and tribulation…is the chastisement of His love. For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. (Hebrews 12:6-8) Thus the office of love is not only to console and comfort, but also to rebuke and correct.

If we are in the love of God, we love not the world, neither the things that are in the world (1 John 2:15), knowing that whosoever is a friend of the world is the enemy of God (James 4:4). Love that is from God is after the truth, without which love for the truth we cannot be saved (2 Thessalonians 2:10), of which Christ further testifies, If ye love me, keep my commandments. (John 14:15) If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. (John 14:23)

Editor's Note: Brother Carl Kulla, a faithful minister of the Word of God, passed into eternity on January 2, 2013. As he wrote of others, "Beautiful have been the feet of those who have preached the gospel of peace and brought glad tidings of good things…" so we say of him these many years later. Many souls have heard the gospel of peace and glad tidings of good things by the preaching of brother Carl.