The word "love" is also a four-letter word used so commonly that its true meaning and significance has been lost. People say they 'love' their house, car, clothes, church, school, pets, food, family, friends, hairdo, music, makeup, movies, etc., and they 'love' God. The word 'love' is also used to replace the word 'appreciate' when asking someone to do something for you (ex: I would love it if you..."
BIBLICAL LOVE DEFINED
The Bible speaks of "agape" and "phileo" love. "Agape" has been defined as a self-sacrificial love committed to the highest good. It is a love not dependent on emotions. Without it, no one could become Born-Again (John 3:16). With "agape" love, God set aside His wrath against humanity and poured it out on the Cross.
"Phileo" love is best defined as tender affection, love from the emotions in a person's soul. It is that kind of love that responds to love from another. It is the love of true friends, a child's love for their parents or another child, or love between a husband and wife. This kind of love can be casual or intense. "Phileo" love can't be relegated to just human emotion. Jesus used this word in describing the Father's love for Him (John 5:20). "Phileo" is used in describing the Father's feelings toward The disciples of Jesus (John 16:27).
It is hard to fathom that we often use the same word that describes the character and nature of God and His relationship with us for things of this world. The term 'love' was never meant to refer to our possessions or pets.
GOD IS LOVE
What makes Christianity completely different and unique from all the other religions in the world is 'love' because it is the only religion where Jesus Christ, who is love Himself, comes to dwell within each willing heart when invited to.
"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother." (1 John 4:7-21 ESV)
The passionate love of God is the blazing fire at the heart of all creation which resounds with the proof that God is love. God thinks about you every moment of every day. His love will never vary or change. That God would love even the vilest of sinners is the greatest mystery of eternity.
God's very essence is love. He has always been love, even before He created us. He has always sought to have a close relationship with us. We were made for this love. The entire story of humanity is wrapped up within it. Love is why we were created, and love is our eternal destiny.
I am firmly convinced that every human being has an unquenchable longing for love and to love and be loved because God is love (1 John 4:8). A person's love for another is just a subtle shadow of God's love for EVERYONE! Jesus Christ is the very definition of love itself and the empirical evidence that it exists. He is the embodiment of love, and everything that He says or does is motivated by it.
Because God is love, He desires to be loved and trusted in return. All of His sovereign rule and control over the Universe is based upon love (See 1 John 4:8, Hebrews 1:3; Colossians 1:17). Humans were created for a relationship with God, and all authority derives from that relationship.
Christianity is the only religion that sets forth the Creator of the Universe as love. Within Him is found all the fullness of excellence, beauty, and perfection. He is the author of all that is good in creation. This truth is taught throughout the Bible, beginning with Adam in the Garden of Eden.
When God created Adam, He said, "I will make a partner suitable to you" (Genesis 2:18 NIV). God was declaring the hidden purpose of His heart from eternity past. The Holy Spirit reveals that the mystery of the ages is that this promise ultimately speaks of Jesus and the Church (See Ephesians 5:25-6:1). Adam loved his wife and knew the truth.
"So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate." (Genesis 3:6 ESV)
The Hebrew text infers that Adam was NOT with Eve when the enemy tempted her. A plain reading of the text indicates that Eve had a private conversation with the enemy, and there is no indication that Adam was present, "The serpent said to the women," "the women said to the serpent," "and the woman saw" (Genesis 3:1-2,6 NKJV). Eve told God that the "serpent beguiled me, and I did eat" (Genesis 3:13 NKJV). Eve did not blame Adam in any way. Adam did not say anything about the serpent.
After stating Eve was deceived by the serpent, the passage shows a sequence of actions by using the Hebrew particle "waw" but does not provide any indication of the amount of time between each action - she took the fruit, ate it, and then gave to some of the forbidden fruit to Adam. It could have been seconds, hours, or even days. Adam willingly chose to disobey God. He had not been deceived or fooled by satan (1 Timothy 2:14).
"For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous." (Romans 5:19 ESV)
The word “disobedience” (Gk: parakouo) means not paying attention, listening, responding, or perceiving.
Some have said that it was because of his great love for Eve that the first human (Heb: 'Adam') willingly gave up his life at the Fall because he did not want to spend eternity without his bride. The Bible says that Jesus is the last Adam who willingly gave up His life because of His great love and did not want to spend eternity without His bride, the Church (see 1 Corinthians 15:45).
God proved He is love by sending Jesus to walk among us and die in our place (John 3:16). He now reaches out to every human being in tender affection with nail-pierced hands in the purest and most intimate way.
GOD'S DEFINITION OF LOVE
"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ESV)
The very nature and essence of love requires that it grow in a willing heart. Sadly, many cannot experience the fundamental reality that God loves and enjoys them. Some would argue that God could not possibly be IN love with them.
What a person believes about God is the most important thing contained in their mind. It affects everything about them. For too many people, God seems remote, impersonal, and unknowable. Because of that, many suffer from an inability to feel forgiven, nagged by doubt and mistrust of Him. A dysfunctional picture of God results in a dysfunctional way of praying. Jesus revealed this truth when He asked;
"What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (Luke 11:11-13 ESV)
HOW TO PROVE YOU LOVE GOD
L-ive for God. Jesus must be our first love and the number one priority in life.
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." (Matt 22:37-40 ESV)
O-ffer yourself as a living sacrifice.
"I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." (Romans 12:1 ESV).
V-alue and esteem everyone more highly than yourself.
Jesus reduced all the 613 Laws of the Old Testament to one: Love God, love people.
"Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:3-11 ESV)
E-scape the cares of this world and do not live beyond your means.
"So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you." (1 Peter 5:6-7 NLT)
"Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." (Luke 12:27 ESV)
CONCLUSION
God's kind of love is impossible because it cannot be created within us. Only God can teach us to love purely. When a person comes to see Jesus for who He really is - LOVE incarnate - they can truly understand their ultimate destiny.
"So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 John 4:16 ESV).
Coming to the understanding that God is love will open up the heart to accept His invitation to engage in a love relationship built on the foundation of trust. There is no safe hiding place outside of His all-consuming burning love. The only absolute safety in this world for you is to be consumed by the love of God.
You can't do anything to gain His affection. Obedience alone will not produce love in the human heart - nor can it excite love. It is God's affectionate kindness and goodness that creates and calls forth the supreme love from the heart that He desires (Romans 2:3-4). His love can become deeply rooted and interwoven within your mind and emotions.
Loving God is not an impossible task. This love commanded by God is not that different from that offered effortlessly to your children, spouse, or family. Within it is found the same pleasure and a sense of purpose, and it is not that hard to express as God requires. He wants you to love Him. The Apostle of love wrote, "We love because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19 ESV).
Loving God is best expressed by daily celebrating Him through worship that uses both behavior and emotion to help release the depths of love, thanksgiving, praise, and adoration generated in the heart by the Holy Spirit at the moment of salvation.
Love is a four-letter word so SHOW it wisely.
