Jesus explains in His parable of the talents that your Heavenly Father God has endowed you with at least one special gift. Often He has blessed you with many more. His gift of love to you, however, is the most precious of them all. If godly love is your one talent, it is yours to continually refine throughout your life. In order to continually grow in godly love, God's Word must be your road map. God Loves You: Notes of His Love unearths truths about your Heavenly Father's love from Paul's description of godly love in his first letter to the Corinthians. In his letter he reveals its seven qualities. You will find in God Loves You: Notes of His Love that each chapter is dedicated to studying a quality of love. As you study each chapter you become a student of God's love. You investigate for yourself how to live an entire life of continual growth in ever-abounding love for your Heavenly Father God, your dear ones, and all humanity. After you devote your entire life to successfully studying and living godly love, you will appear before your Heavenly Father God. When He sees your soul beaming the seven qualities of godly love, He will tell you "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your Master's happiness"

God Loves You

Notes of His LoveBy Thomas Franckowiak

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Thomas Franckowiak
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4685-5539-4

Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction—The Need to Live Godly Love Is Clear...............................................3Chapter 2 God Is Love—No One Loves You the Way Your Heavenly Father Does..................................15Chapter 3 Love Is Patient—Patience Is God's Commitment to Take You into His Care..........................33Chapter 4 Love Rejoices in the Truth—Rejoice with Your Heavenly Father God Yahweh.........................63Chapter 5 Love Always Protects—God Will Always Be Your Savior Part I......................................97Chapter 6 Love Always Protects—God Will Always Be Your Savior Part II.....................................123Chapter 7 Love Always Hopes—God Is Your Everlasting Hope Part I...........................................155Chapter 8 Love Always Hopes—God Is Your Everlasting Hope Part II..........................................187Chapter 9 Love Always Trusts—Trust God to Always Love You Part I..........................................215Chapter 10 Love Always Trusts—Trust God to Always Love You Part II........................................233Chapter 11 Love Always Perseveres—God Will Complete Your Victory Part I...................................265Chapter 12 Love Always Perseveres—God Will Complete Your Victory Part II..................................299Chapter 13 Love Is Gracious—You Are Reconciled to Your Heavenly Father's Love Part I......................331Chapter 14 Love Is Gracious—You Are Reconciled to Your Heavenly Father's Love Part II.....................355Chapter 15 You Mature When You Love—Grow with God in Love.................................................375

Chapter One

The Need to Live Godly Love is Clear

The need for you and I to live godly love is clear when we look at the world. No matter how optimistic you and I are, we must both acknowledge that the world is fallen and polluted. To discover this, all we have to do is watch CNN or Fox News to conclude that much of the world is in a state of turmoil caused by strife and hatred.

You hear that President Ahmadinejad is leading Iran to build a hostile nuclear weapons program that would threaten Israel and the entire western world. He said that Israel must be "wiped off the map."

Then you hear about Palestinians boarding buses as human bombs to blow up Israeli women and children or you hear about Palestinians firing mortars at Israeli homes. Once you hear about these unconscionable acts that the Palestinians never tire of committing against the Israelis, you hear a report how Israel is sending in tanks into the Gaza Strip or the West Bank. You see the damage that an Israeli F-16 has done to a Palestinian community. You see a crater and the charred remains of homes where families used to live.

These are post-911 events! Ten years later, the U.S. still has troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Taliban fighters still have not been convinced that they need to stop pointing guns and exploding things. Even after Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden's deaths, violence is exploding all over the world. We would hope that all the hatred and the strife would go away, that it finally would stop, but it never does. A news report brings to your attention that the Chinese are now building supercarriers to challenge U.S. naval power in the Pacific.

Recently, you might have seen the news coverage in Libya. Not too long ago, Muammar Gaddafi was hiring mercenaries to shoot dead anyone that happened to be walking on the street. It could have been a mother walking with her children to the grocery store. Or it could have been an elderly man returning from his neighbor's home. He did this to crush the Arab Spring that exploded in his country. He had ruled with an iron-fist for over 40 years but now his people wanted change. Now, he is finally dead, after he was beaten and shot in the streets. He died the same way in which he ordered those who opposed him to be executed.

You learn that strife and violence is much closer to home than you would like it to be. The violence along the U.S.-Mexico seems to be spiraling frighteningly out of control. You hear about mass graves linked to a Mexican drug cartel. You hear about decapitated heads and car bombs blowing up innocent people in Acapulco, once famed to be a vacation paradise.

Then you hear that the drug cartels actually control large swaths of the Arizona desert. Officially, our federal government is in control but it cannot stop the endless streams of drug deliveries into the U.S. You watch documentaries showing live-video coverage of Mexicans carrying huge packages of marijuana on their backs. You see AT-V tracks where drug traffickers would drop their loads. You learn that Mexican cartels are in such control of the Arizona desert that they have scouts atop mountains to observe federal border patrols. The marijuana eventually might find its way to the school locker of a high school student or it might find its way to a mansion of a Hollywood celebrity.

One thing is to know that you are protected from all of the acts of discord and hatred that are common everyday occurrences in our society: divorce, infidelity, domestic violence, gang violence, homicides, abortions, sexual violence, cyber-bullying, and etc., forever. It is another to know that discord, lack of harmony, and deprivation of love have affected you personally.

You just want all of the turmoil to be far away but sadly it often makes its way home. For me, this has meant feeling the acute pain of my parents' divorce throughout my high school and college years at Abilene Christian University. My parents divorced when I was sixteen. I did not see my grandmother until a month before she passed away. After my parents divorced, over nine years passed before I saw Dad again. We were both at her funeral when we finally did. Additionally, the disunity has meant not seeing many of my aunts and cousins for many years.

What I did learn from my circumstances is that most of the time, when people decide not to love and they decide not to be friendly, they believe that not loving and not being friendly is the best decision. Yet, the world is not a better place when people just go their own separate ways because of lack of goodwill.

Study Godly Love

Thus, I am not alone when I think that more love is needed in this world. John Lennon wrote the song Imagine. Heat tempted to imagine what the world would be without wars, without genocide, without terrorism, without domestic violence, without all of the arguments and the harsh words, and without the open wounds of heartache. But John Lennon failed to understand that only the love that is of God—godly love—holds people and everything that exists together, from dawn's encouraging dew on blades of grass to the fetus that develops within its mother's womb (NIV Colossians 1.15-18).

We cannot put an end to all of the worldly strife and hatred but Jesus tells us that we "are the salt of the earth." He tells us that we "are the light of the world" and that the world will know us by our love. Maybe if you and I could go back in time we would not have been able to persuade Hitler to "pick up his cross" and to follow Jesus. But if each of us, one by one, picks up our cross to add a savory flavor to a bitter world, when God looks down on the earth and sees all of its wickedness and then sees you and I...