“The Christian says, ‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water… If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.”
C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity
How do the partial and temporary enjoyments, pleasures and loves of life point us to Jesus?
God shows his love, and that our longing for love is fulfilled in him, because God is love.
1 John 4: 8, 16 – “God is love.”
We know God’s love because God blesses us.
Psalm 145:8-9 says 8 The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. 9 The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.
Matthew 5:45 “For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”
In what ways has God bless your life?
We know God’s love because he commands us. (Exodus 20; Matthew 5-7; 22)
“We love God by worshiping him alone and renouncing all other gods and lords, by worshiping him as he desires and not according to our own idolatrous devices, by using his name only with a full understanding of its holiness, and by acknowledging the Sabbath… We love our neighbors by honoring our parents and all others in authority over us, by revering human life as sacred in God’s sight, by respecting the marriage bed, the property of others, and the truth, and by guarding our hearts against desires that lead to breaking other commandments.”
J. Frame, “Systematic Theology”, p1113
How have you seen the goodness of God’s commands?
Why do we sometimes doubt whether obeying God’s commands are the best thing for us?
We know God’s love because God alone saves us. (John 3:16)
Romans 5:8 – God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
1 John 4:9-10 – 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is LOVE, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Why can we be sure of God’s love for us even when we face suffering and loss?
How does God’s display of life in Jesus Christ give you hope?
In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:37-39
