Wednesday, April 13, 2022

How To Know What Love Is...


1 John 3:16-20

This is how we know what love is: 
Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.
 And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 
17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need
 but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 
18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth 
and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 
20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, 
and he knows everything.

(version 1)




When through ancient age/page we travel
When our hearts are wholly gripped
As we trace and humbly marvel
And embrace redemption’s script
As the grace that wrought salvation
Stuns us with love’s magnitude
Mercy’s divine transformation
Turns despair to gratitude

Draws the heart, no longer hardened
(Though this world with horrors groans)
To the cross where sin is pardoned
To the One whose death atones
All who come without excuses
All who repent and believe
Not one sinner, He refuses
His forgiveness to receive

Look! Behold Hope’s holy horror
At Love’s body, bathed in blood
At the Healer’s Hands, nail-burrowed
From Him spews redemption’s flood
Hark! He cries, by all forsaken
Behold! Now He bows His head
Look! He dies, the skies are shaken
As the graves give up their dead

But Death was a fated rival
I AM no grave could constrain
Jesus Christ arose triumphal
Over sin and death; amen
This is how we know what love is
Jesus Christ laid down his life
Love does not forget its promise
Wrought through Heaven's sacrifice

This is joy; to be forgiven
Love's broken body, life’s bread
Where, still through all earth from Heaven
Runs redemption’s scarlet thread
This is hope’s unflinching anchor
Though time’s troubled tempests roll
Hallelujah what a Savior
This is faith that makes us whole
Hallelujah, what a Savior
Jesus, Savior of the soul


© Janet Martin



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