(Part I)
What is love? Why do we choose to love? How do we know what
it is? Is it something we as human beings discovered or was it something that
was given to us?
Recently, we had the all too commercial holiday of
Valentines Day come to pass. You know the day where candy, card, and stuffed
teddy bear companies make their annual profits because we’ve chosen 1 day out
of 365 to emphasize “love”. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of these people
who is a cynic about love, I might not be a fan of the holiday, but more so
curious about this word, love.
We throw the word around so much these days; I think it’s
lost some of the meaning behind it. Any of these sound familiar, “Ohh I LOVE
that movie!” ” I LOVE pizza”, “Ferrari, I LOVE that car!” There is more phrases, in fact I’m sure
if we monitor ourselves we find ourselves saying the word LOVE at least one or
more times to reference things we truly do not love, by the true definition of
the word.
So let’s
look, what does Love mean? How do we as adults define it? Webster’s Dictionary
would define it as: “a strong affection for another arising
out of kinship or personal ties”. Often this “intense
affection” stems from a sexual attraction for that other person. We love
other people, or we say we love other people, when we are attracted to them and
when they make us feel good. Notice that a key phrase in the dictionary
definition of love is the phrase “based on”. This phrase implies that
we love conditionally; in other words, we love someone because they fulfill a
condition that we require before we can love them. How many times have you
heard or said, “I love you because you are cute;” or “I love you
because you take good care of me;” or “I love you because you are fun
to be with”?
definition of LOVE was, here is what some responded with: “When someone
loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your
name is safe in their mouth.” Billy – age 4. “When my grandmother got
arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my
grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis
too. That’s love.” Rebecca – age 8. “There are two kinds of
love, our love & God’s love. But God makes both kinds of them.” Jenny
– age 8.
Do you think
Jenny (age 8) was onto something? Is God LOVE?
How does God define love? The
Bible tells us “God is Love” (1 John 4:8). But how can we even begin
to understand that truth? There are many passages in the Bible that give us
God’s definition of love. The most well known verse is John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.” So one way God defines love is in the act of
giving. However, what God gave (or should we say, “who” God gave) was
not a mere gift-wrapped present; God sacrificed His only Son so that we, who
put our faith in His Son, will not spend eternity separated from Him. This is
an amazing love, because we are the ones who choose to be separated from God
through our own sin, yet it’s God who mends the separation through His intense
personal sacrifice, and all we have to do is accept His gift.
great verse about God’s love is found in Romans 5:8, “But God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us.” In this verse and in John 3:16, we find
no conditions placed on God’s love for us. God doesn’t say, “as soon as
you clean up your act, I’ll love you; ” nor does He say, “I’ll
sacrifice my Son if you promise to love me.” In fact, in Romans 5:8, we
find just the opposite. God wants us to know that His love is unconditional, so
He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us while we were still unlovable
sinners. We didn’t have to get clean, and we didn’t have to make any promises
to God before we could experience His love. His love for us has always existed,
and because of that, He did all the giving and sacrificing long before we were
even aware that we needed His love.
So is it so far
fetched to say God is Love, and His love is very different from human love?
God’s love is unconditional, and it’s not based on feelings or emotions. He
doesn’t love us because we’re lovable or because we make Him feel good; He
loves us because He is love. He created us to have a loving relationship with
Him, and He sacrificed His own Son (who also willingly died for us) to restore
that relationship. We know what love is because of Him, He is love, it’s not an action or
emotion it’s His nature. He gave it to us to love Him back and love one another
as He’s loved us (We’ll dive more into this in part 2).
you with this thought, if you have a relationship with God, what does it look
like for you to simply be still and let Him love you? If you don’t have a
relationship with God, what will it take for you to open your heart to Him and
simply be loved by Him? This should be a challenging question. As this
Valentines day passed, the men in this house chose to show the women we live
with a tangible way God loves them by preparing a great meal, writing them
notes from “God”, and giving them a flower, seem cheesy? Not to these women,
see I think it’s important we open ourselves to allow God to work through us to show His LOVE to people around us, in tangible ways. HE LOVES YOU, be still and think about that, it should make you jump up and down as you read it, HE LOVES YOU!
