“This is Love” (Ready to Worship S8E2)

On this season of Ready to Worship, we are focusing on the cross. I know of no way to better prepare our minds for worship than that.

In his book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, Joshua Harris contrasts the shallow love of the world with the deep love of Christ. He wrote, “The world takes us to a silver screen on which flickering images of passion and romance play, and as we watch, the world says, ‘This is love.’ God takes us to the foot of a tree on which a naked and bloodied man hangs and says, ‘This is love.’”

John, the apostle of love, declared, “In this 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, NKJV). Did you catch those three words? “This is love.” This is love that God sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Propitiation refers to “an appeasing” or “an atonement” (2434). Our sins were separating us from God. Isaiah wrote, “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear” (Isa. 59:1-2). Jesús died to take away our sins that we might be reconciled or at one with God again. To the saints at Ephesus, Paul wrote, “For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Eph. 2:14-18).

As we get ready to worship this week, we need to go back to the cross and be reminded of what love really is. Then, and only then, can we worship God with the love that he deserves.