By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. … In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 3:16, 4:9-10).
The devil wants to cripple our lives with guilt and he will often use religion to do it, overloading us with guilt and shame when we don’t act right. He uses the religion of atheism and humanism to get us to ignore sin and truth. Both ideas weigh us down—consciously and subconsciously—and destroy our lives. Jesus is the antidote for this and is the evidence of God’s love. Once we grasp the level of the love of God for us, we will be changed forever. His blood cleanses our consciences from guilt and shame, making possible for us to know God’s love at the very core of our being. His sacrifice is the only way anyone will truly know what love is in a very real sense.
