The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.
Ephesians 1:14 NLT
Love requires commitment; the deepest human form is through a proposal of marriage. There is nothing that brings a group more alive than being present when love is professed and a proposal is made within a public space. We, the crowd who by chance observe this event, know nothing of the couple, yet our hearts join with them in their moment of excitement and joy. The guarantor of such a proposal is a ring, now worn exclusively on a finger revealing a commitment has been made.
God invites us to make a response to a proposal of the deepest love that can ever be known. When we accept, we too receive a sign of that commitment, the Holy Spirit, the guarantor of God’s promise to each one of us.
Commitment carries obligations; there are exclusive benefits – equally, there are exclusive demands.
Remarkably, outrageous love, as modelled by God, allows me to live as I choose. It never constrains my freedom of action. Yet, my actions will inevitably determine the depth of my experience of God’s love.
As we gaze upon the love relationship we enjoy with God, God never abandons the commitment offered to us. We often waver and break that commitment. God always stands ready to receive us back. My own learning has been that rather than living like a yo-yo, drifting away from and then returning to God, as if that’s my inbuilt purpose, I can consider the nature of God’s outrageous love and seek to discover how I might imitate it through my own life.
QUESTION
How well is your commitment to God growing? Are you discovering the benefits of cherishing and caring for this relationship? God has your best interests at heart. Are you able to place your full confidence in God’s outrageous love?
PRAYER
Thank you for your outrageous love, for adopting me into your family.
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