Proof Positive

1 John 4:13 And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. 14 Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. 16 We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.

It is proof positive that God has given us His Spirit and it is proof positive that one of the characteristics of that Spirit is love. That love is a transcendent love. In other words, it is a love that knows no bound

s. Verses 9-10 in 1 John says it so much better than me. 9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. God's boundless love is a love we experience when we receive Christ and when we are filled with the Holy Spirit! This love is a gamechanger. You may ask how?

1. It is the kind of love that causes a Holy God to send His Holy Son to live on the earth among His creation and then give His live for undeserving people like you and me. Transcending (def) - To pass beyond the limits of. The limits of the barrier between Almighty God and us were found in sin, but Jesus took that sin upon Himself and defeated it for you and me. His walk to the cross, as brutal as all that was, shows us just how much God loves us.

2. We receive that love. Verse 7-8 in 1 John says it like this 7 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. So when we are born again our capacity to love goes to new heights that are boundless and beyond what we thought we could achieve.

3. This love compels us to love not only the person but their soul. We want to know what their soul condition is and it becomes a matter of priority in our thinking. Look at verse 16b-17 of 1 John God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 17 And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect.

4. The final proof is what Jesus did for each of us by dying for our sins and defeating death. Jesus' love gives us hope. A hope that lives in each of us and compels us to serve God with a sold out lifestyle. We don't live a mediocre faith. We live a vibrant, extraordinary faith that changes all the situations of life itself. Verse 13 And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us.

5. When the Holy Spirit is active and working in your life it is like a bomb going off and the blast area is wherever you may go in your walk. That is why we say the words "How is your walk?" Meaning, what is God doing now in your life in your areas of influence. Because it is no longer you that is doing it but the Holy Spirit working through you. We look at people different and look at them more like Jesus would. 2 Corinthians 5:6 So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now!17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

That knew life makes us living examples of God's love and we need to guard that distinction by staying in the Word and growing in our relationship with Jesus. Paul called us ambassadors in a later verse in 2 Corinthians 5:20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

Our faith in Christ is Proof Positive that God has great things He wants to do through each of us and it all begins with His love and the expression of that love through our life! Please read the following story.

On May 2, 1962, a dramatic advertisement appeared in the San Francisco Examiner: "I don't want my husband to die in the gas chamber for a crime he did not commit. I will therefore offer my services for 10 years as a cook, maid, or housekeeper to any leading attorney who will defend him and bring about his vindication."

One of San Francisco's greatest attorneys, Vincent Hallinan, read or heard about the ad and contacted Gladys Kidd, who had placed it. Her husband, Robert Lee Kidd, was about to be tried for the slaying of an elderly antique dealer. Kidd's fingerprints had been found on a bloodstained ornate sword in the victim's shop. During the trial, Hallinan proved that the antique dealer had not been killed by the sword, and that Kidd's fingerprints and blood on the sword got there because Kidd had once toyed with it while playfully dueling with a friend when they were both out shopping. The jury, after 11 hours, found Kidd to be not guilty. Attorney Halliman refused Gladys Kidd's offer of 10 years of servitude.

atthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. There we find love......

The Pilgrimage continues.....

David Warren