As the frozen snow at our house is trying its best to melt, I wound up coming across some frozen waterfall photos from the archives (March 2019) which I don’t think I’ve shared before. Frozen waterfalls have a unique beauty all their own!
With today being Valentine’s Day, it naturally made sense to pair the wintry waterfalls with thoughts on love.
Here is my personal paraphrase of Ephesians 2:1, 5 – “We all were icy and cold and frozen-over because of our sin and all the bad things we were doing. But God had so much love for us that he didn’t let us stay like that. God’s powerful flow of love was greater than the icy-ness of our cold frozen heart. God made a way, through Jesus Christ, for the icy frozenness to be broken through so that life-giving water could flow! God made us spiritually alive! That’s absolutely amazing!”
Here is my personal paraphrase of Romans 5:5 – “God’s love for us is so great that our icy frozenness couldn’t hold back his flow of love. Just like this waterfall here, God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given us.”
Here is my personal paraphrase of 1 John 3:1 – “Whoa! It’s absolutely mind-blowing how great the love is which God the Father has lavished on us! … that he would allow us to be called his kids! That’s absolutely mind-blowing!”
My personal paraphrase of 1 John 4:10 – “God loved us so much that he sent his son Jesus Christ … Jesus left the perfection of Heaven up above and came all the way down here to earth. Here, where everyone has cold frozen sinful hearts. Jesus took the fall! Jesus took the fall for our sin! Our icy cold frozenness couldn’t stop God’s love! Our cold frozen sinful hearts couldn’t stop Jesus’s love for us! Jesus took the fall to save us from our sin.”
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ poured out his very life for us!” – 1 John 3:16
My personal paraphrase of Ephesians 5:1-2 – “Since we are dearly loved kids of God, our loving Heavenly Father wants us to follow his example; he wants us to imitate him and to live a life of love!
“Just as God our Father poured out his love for us, and just as Jesus Christ showed us what love is by taking the fall for us, God wants us to love the same way! Even when people are icy and cold and mean … God wants us to pour out love anyway, just like him (because he loved us when our hearts were icy and cold toward him).”
My personal paraphrase of 1 John 4:7-8, 11 “Love comes from God. God wants his love to flow through our life to everyone around us. His love is more powerful than any icy-ness or any coldness. God’s flow of love is stronger! All we have to do is let his love flow through us. Don’t block the flow with boulders of sin in our life. Don’t block the flow with boulders of bitterness in our life. Don’t block the flow with big, huge boulders of unforgiveness in our life.
“The flow of God’s love is powerful! God wants his love to flow through our life to others around us!”
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. … Let us love not just with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” – 1 John 3:16, 18
