God is love! Of course all Christians should have heard that phrase and believe that it is true because we are told that God is love in the Bible.
1 John 4:7-21 NASB 7 Beloved, let’s love one another; for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 By this the love of God was revealed [a]in us, that God has sent His only Son into the world so that we may live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the [b]propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we remain in Him and He in us, because He has given to us of His Spirit. 14 We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God. 16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has [c]for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. 17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, we also are in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear [d]involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. 19 We love, because He first loved us. 20 If someone says, “I love God,” and yet he hates his brother or sister, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother and sister whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.
So specifically, these are two verses in which the Apostle John informs us definitively that God is love. It is not just an attribute of God; God is not just the most loving being of all, God is love. It is not just an important part of God. Love and God exist hand in hand. Without Love we have no God and without God we have no Love.
1 John 4:8 NASB 8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
And then just 8 passages later John tells us
1 John 4:16 NASB 16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
So there are two scriptures that tell us plainly that God is love. But what does that mean to us. Well, I believe that the fact that God is love is why we were created. We had to be created for God to express the Love that is His Make-up. There would be no meaning to God if God did not have someone to express Himself or Give of Himself. So, the angels were created and then we were created for God to be God or to be Love.
As we move into the reason of our creation, it is important for us to remember that according to Genesis 1:27 we were created in His image.
Genesis 1:27 NASB 27 So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Not that we are love but we were created to be the images or mirrors of who God is.
God’s desire for us to be more loving is expressed in every commandment God has given us so we can grow more into that divine love. That desire is especially seen in the commandment that we are to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves which should be as God loves us if we are the images of God that originally created us to be.
If we did that, if we committed ourselves to God’s will on earth as it is Heaven, this would be a world perfected in God’s love. This world’s love would be expressed in a deep gratitude for God and for the support God has given each of us specifically in ways that would bless other people.
In other words we would have a deeper gratitude for each other because we were meant to be the images of God’s love or the reflections of the love that is God.
In the world God intended this world to be, our love for one another could not be distinguished from the love God has for us and this world would be as sinless as heaven is sinless. That is what God intended this world to be but Adam and Eve’s rebellious disobedience destroyed what God created earth to be so now we live in a world of lesser love.
We also live in a world of lesser divine knowledge because our rebellion from God also serves to separate us more from God’s wealth of knowledge. In other words, the more we are separated from God, the more ignorant we become of who God is and what God knows and the less we value the significance of God’s knowledge.
The further we get from God the further we get from Love. The closer we get to God the closer we get to Love; perfect love; same with God’s knowledge. This is why it is so important that we put more effort to get as close to God as possible by putting more focus on God and following His commandments.
The best measure of how close we are to God is revealed by how much love we reflect or offer to God and how much we offer to others. In other words, it is up to us on how much we lovingly focus on God and others instead of on our own selves and needs.
Brotherly love is a response to God’s expressed Love to us. The closer we get to God the more we recognize that fact.
There are so many examples and commandments that prove that God doesn’t just give love but is the foundation and the source of love.
For instance, John 15:12 NASB This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.
And
John 13:34-35 NASB 34 I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another.”
In the first chapter of John’s Gospel of Jesus, John makes it clear that Jesus isn’t just the Son of God, He is God, the creator of all that has been created, so a more accurate description of Jesus is He is God the Son, rather than just the offspring of God or something less than God. There is no difference between Jesus and God the Father.
They are one in the same being. God, the creator of all we can survey, came from heaven and became the man we know as Jesus, begotten of God, born of a woman after growing in her womb and grew up to show that God is love by dying on the cross so we could continue to be with Him after our rebellion and disobedience separated us from Him. He saved us by giving up His human life as a ransom for our eternal lives.
God could not love us any more than He has already shown us when He left the glory of Heaven as Paul says in the second chapter of Philippians.
Philippians 2:6-8 NASB 6 who, as He already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross.
I just want to interject something here before I move on. The best way that we can love God is to be obedient to Him; to His commandments, especially these commandment to love one another as He has loved us as seen through Jesus actions.
So scriptures establishes that Jesus Christ is God who came to dwell among us and died for no other reason but to establish a relationship between us and Him that would reveal how much He loves us and inspire us to love each other as much as He loves us. And if we love Him, we will keep that commandment to love each other that much. And that is how people will know that we are His; His love will remain in us. They see His divine love in us, as opposed to a lesser worldly love.
But what does that look like for us to love one another in a world fraught with people who make it very hard to love them.
The Ten commandments teaches us some of the ways we can love each other and avoid things that keep us from loving each other.
But how can children honor their parents who are self-centered egomaniacs who are negligent and abusive, drug addicts and criminals who show no real love for their children?
How do we love someone who has abused or murdered our child or spouse?
How do we love someone who has made it their mission to degrade and belittle you every chance they get.
How do we love those who abuse their positions of power and control over others or the boss that fired you to make room for someone younger at a lower wage?
How do we love people like this after we’ve personally experience their abuse and persecution ? Do we throw love out the window? As Christians we should know better.
Jesus said in Matthew 5:44 NASB 44 But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
So how do we obey this commandment when what we feel like doing is giving them their just deserts and hope that they suffer even more than we’ve suffered at their hands.
How do we be as loving as Christ, who as He was dying on the cross, said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”?
How do we forgive and love our abusers and persecutors, the way Jesus did? For most of us we have to process through the anger we feel. We have to take steps that soften our hardened hearts.
And Jesus gives us the first and easiest step to take in His sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:44. We are to pray for those who persecute us. Prayer is the first step because it not only serves to soften our hearts, prayer also serves to humble us before God in the same way that God humbled Himself to die on the cross for us all, even those who persecuted Him and hung Him on a Cross to die.
Christians are called to live righteously; to seek God’s righteousness. But living righteously can a be a hazy vision in our brokenness in this broken and sinful world. Reaching for righteousness is like grasping at vapor, as we live in this world. Even the best of Christians fail even though we may have the best intentions.
But the Ancient of Days has given us the road map to living righteously back in the Old Testament in
Micah 6:8 NASB
8 He has told you, mortal one, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Here is the set of keys to living righteously as required by God.
Do Justice! “Act in a just, fair way towards others. Treat them as you would want to be treated.”
Love kindness! “Don’t just show kindness, love to show it. Other versions of the bible use the word mercy instead of kindness. When I think about loving kindness I think of surprising people with acts of kindness. That can be toward a stranger who doesn’t expect acts of kindness coming from someone they’ve never met before or toward an enemy who receives mercy in the form of kindness instead of retaliation for their evil or thoughtless, inconsiderate, self-centered actions against us.
At the very least we should give others the same measure of mercy and kindness we would want to receive not just from them but the mercy and kindness we really want to receive from God.
And then we are to walk humbly with God.
There’s that notion of humbling ourselves with God. Humbling ourselves with God is the evidence that tell us that the love of Jesus remains in us. If we are humble with God, being the images of God, we will imitate His humility as He humbled himself to die on the cross for us.
So as we pray, as we seek to be in intimate communion with God. Our prays should not be about transforming our persecutors; our enemies mindset, it should be about us asking God to soften our hearts toward them so we can walk humbly with God.
If we don’t seek God’s help to soften our own heart first, we will be clashing with each. The result of two hardened hearts colliding is one or both of those hard hearts will be broken.
That’s really all that can come from two angry hurting people. It will be easier for God to transform their hearts if our hearts don’t remain hardened.
We are called to live righteously. That means that we must decline to live in ways that are incompatible with God’s love and God’s teachings that command us to love our neighbors even if our neighbor is our enemy. They still need to be shown love even if the love we show is not to retaliate but to be kind in response. Besides vengeance is mine says the Lord.
I want to close with a concept that might help you move to be more obedient to God’s commandment to love one another as Jesus has loved us.
God is Love. He loves us in ways that we don’t think of as natural in this world. God’s love seems unnatural to our rebellious hearts. If we are to be the images of God that we were created to be we have to learn to love with a heart that does not rebel against God’s commandments to love each other.
If we are going to be the mirrors of God’s love, we have to be open to loving in unnatural or supernatural ways.
That is not easy but it is much easier when we pray with the intent to be in God’s will. Pray with the intention to bring the light of Christ to those we humbly pray for.
If we are ever going to overcome the darkness of the world with the light of Christ, we’ll have to first overcome our own darkness by humbly walking with God and seeking His righteousness and tall of these things will be add unto us. The Bible makes clear that God blesses those who seek Him. Do justice Love kindness and mercy
Walk Humbly with God.
