Life of the Church: Love That Restores

This last Sunday we had the privilege of hearing from one of our leaders, Laura Sharp. Laura spoke from John 18 about the restorative love of Jesus. We learn a lot about Jesus from this text. We learn that Jesus knew the pain of betrayal, he even willingly chose it. He invested in people He knew were going to break His heart. What does that say about Him? It says that He knew what it was to be loved by His Father - that perfect love that casts out fear. He did not have to manipulate the people around Him because He was not afraid of them. To love like this, we first have to let ourselves be loved like this. There is no loving others apart from loving and being loved by God. His love is powerful, not of this world but given to us freely - to restore us to Himself that we might become ambassadors of heavenly restoration on earth.