It seems that love defies definition but is happily described by many who feel like they have experienced it. "I Love Lucy." While this puts a smile on my face, what does it really mean? Just when love seems too hard to pin down the Bible rushes in to help. The Apostle John declares that
"God is love" (1 John 4:8, 4:16).
"God is love." The Bible declares this concise and profound truth. But then I ask, what is the love of God? Well, frankly, God's love has been a little bit of a mystery for me.
Here's where I am so far:
(1.) Unfailing love describes God. He does not exist apart from love. So if I'm ever going to comprehend Him to any extent, it is going to be by comprehending His love. He deals with me in love. His plan for me is based on His love. Seems to me then that the love of God is the most critical concept I will ever encounter. Perhaps if I come to understand the love of God, I will come to understand the basis of human love and maybe just maybe I may develop capacity for wonderful relationships with other people.
(2.) I suspect that Divine love is not merely a cerebral thing. "Agape" love seems to connote a sense of action as well. During the course of human history, God's love is revealed by the provision of a Savior and salvation for all mankind (1 John 4:9-10), by His fellowship with and provisions for believers in this life, and by His bestowal of the
"surpassing riches of His grace" upon believers for all eternity (Ephesians 2:4-7).
(3.) God's love is transcendent to mine that is for sure. I have no natural ability to relate to it. God's love is self-motivated, unconditional, infinite and absolute while my love, I confess, is object-motivated, conditional, finite and relative. Love you Keith...today! We'll see about tomorrow.
What
can I safely say about God's love? Well, compared to it my love is deficient. I can't do it. Yet the Bible says that we should do everything in love (1 Corinthians 16:4; 1 John 4:11). Therefore I must look to God.
So awe-struck was Moses when confronted with the presence of God that he hid his face and was afraid to look (Exodus 3:5-6). Believers, on the other hand, should not be afraid to look. The revelation of Scripture allows every believer to see the stunning essence of God and to understand His essential nature. At no point do I feel my own limitations more than when confronted with the overwhelming personage and unlimited ability of God as revealed in His Word.
"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God" (1 John 4:7).
(4.) A starting place. Knowledge of the love
of God must precede love
for God (1 John 4:19). When I come to know God through His Word, I begin to respond with respect for Him. When I respect Him, I accept His Word as my authority and guide. When I accept His authority, I obey His mandates.
"But whoever keeps His word, in him the love of [or lit., "for"]
God has truly been perfected" (1 John 2:5a).
When I obey His Word in response to His love for me, I seem to be motivated to continue advancing---growing in grace---spiritually. Is it possible that as I mature, I may gain this capacity and ability to truly love God?
Here's a theory. My love for God and therefore my love toward others is diminished, thwarted by my fear. Fear has been one of the greatest of all distractions to my spiritual life. I've had to come to grips with the fact that fear (in the obsessive anxiety sense---not that which keeps me from leaping from the Sears Tower) is a sin.
All fear has ever done for me is to create stress. The outside adversities of life become the inside pressures of stress in my soul. Fear is me reacting emotionally rather than thinking under pressure. I have succumbed to fear before and I have been overcome with panic and hysteria. What happens then? I start to develop bitterness, guilt, and malice toward others.
And what is worse, the more I live by fear, the more I am intimidated by life.
"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love" (1 John 4:18).
This Divine love surely is not love which I can produce on my own, that is, from my own resources. Therefore it must be: 'I, God will do it. Will you trust Me?' Moreover, God's love did not give me a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power and love and sound judgment (2 Timothy 1:7). Therefore, as it has been pointed out by others here, this is truly a supernatural love since it is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and supported by the control of my thinking through the Word of God.
Today if I fear that God has brought me this far only to abandon me in the desert (my gosh, will you look at the economic crisis and the real estate market! Come on!), my love for God is extremely immature and my faith is rattled. And if my love for God is so stunted, you can be sure that I ain't liking people very much as a general rule... present company excepted of course.
Brad
Note: Paul and other Epistle writers seem to suggest that a personal relationship with God begins individually, but then flows over into all of our relationships, caring for the least, loving our enemies, and showing the fruit of that genuine personal connection.