Love is just one of God’s many attributes, love is what God is, love is inherent in all He does. In His justice He shows love, in His mercy He shows love, in God’s wrath is love. All love comes from the Father, and in His great and mysterious way He allows an infinitesimal part of that love to flow through us.
God’s first object for His love is His Son Jesus Christ. “And suddenly a voice came from heaven saying; This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” (Matt. 3:17) What son or daughter wouldn’t want to hear that from their father. In our Lord’s prayer to the Father in John 17:26, He said “And I have declared to them your name, and I will declare it, that the love with which you loved me may be in them.” God’s love is eternal and Jesus is the eternal object of our Fathers love. Jesus in turn showed His love for the Father through submission and obedience, how much less should He expect from those whom He has chosen to be heirs to the Kingdom of His glory, to those whose hearts are truly touched with the love He expressed in Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” How intense a love, that God would send His Son to die for those that have rejected Him, have sinned against Him, have hated Him. He wants us to love Him, which is incredible when you stop to think how sinful we are.
Too many people are willing to express love to what God has created here on the earth more than to He who created it. We ignore Him, make excuses as to why we don’t spend more time studying His Word and praying for His guidance, not only in the major areas that come up unexpectedly in our lives, but even in the most mundane, daily chores we must all complete. We want to do what we want, which is usually not in His will, but we expect Him to bless us, even though we have not sought out His will for us that day. O, how we can take such a deep, abiding and eternal love for granted.
By being obedient to God, we can show our love for Him, by being submissive to His Word, we show respect and reverence to Him. “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27) By truly trusting in Him through faith, we show that we love Him. Love is not just a wonderful feeling we have for God, it is an action. “Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works.” (James 2:18) Do not be misunderstanding here, we are not saved by works, but by Grace, (Eph. 2:8), but it is the works that we do after our salvation that shows that we are saved. These actions can include everything from a growing prayer life that focuses on the will of God to a voice that now proclaims His glory no matter the cost, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Lev. 19:18).
God is commanding, not suggesting, to his children to do for others, not just to think about it, not just to have good intentions, but to love someone other than ourselves. To be a helping hand to others, to share their needs for His glory, whether we are sharing God’s precious word or shoveling snow for them, we cannot be selfish and just do what we want anymore. If we do not share and help with our actions and our words, how will they know that we have been transformed from this world into His. This type of deep, caring love does not exist in us without the Holy Spirit, it is the expression of the love that He has for us and for others that flows through us to them. It is an amazing love.
“Do not love the world or the things in the world, if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1st John 2:15) God must have first place in our hearts and minds, not our husband or wife, not our house or the things in it, not even our children, He must be first in all. We can’t know what love really means until we know who our Lord and Savior is, and we cannot know this love unless we are immersed in His word.
Before I was saved, I thought I knew what love meant, but the more I learn and am being taught about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the more I know how to love. I know how to shed tears over that love He has blessed me with, it is an incredible gift that I find hard to put into words, His love has changed me so much and is changing me in ways I never thought possible, and I sincerely thank Him for it. For, I was a lost soul in need of Him who created me and knew me before He made the world. He is turning my heart of stone into one of flesh, and I am turning from darkness to the one true light, I have been born again, Praise God! Without His wonderful gift of love I wasn’t able to truly love anyone or anything, but the scales have fallen off of my heart and now I am beginning to understand the real meaning of love, I can demonstrate love because he first loved me.
God loves us enough to rejoice when one of His children who has fallen repents and comes back to Him. The story in Luke of the prodigal son, (Luke 15:11-32), is just one of the many ways that God shows His un-ending love for us. We may go wandering off and forget our Lord, but He never forgets us, and as we come back to Him, tails between our legs, hoping for some small crumb of forgiveness, He runs towards us, runs to welcome home the wayward child, embracing them with great gladness, and a love that cannot be broken. There is nothing that a true believer can do to make Him love us less, and, true to the fulfilment of Matthew 18:12-24, God rejoices more over one lost sheep that is found, than the ninety-nine that did not go astray. If you have gone astray, return to Him, return to this love that knows no bounds.
“Through love be servants to one another” (Gal. 5:13) Our Lord Jesus Christ gave us a wonderful example of loving one another in John 13 when He washed the disciple’s feet. Foot washing was something lowly that the servants did, it wasn’t a gesture that someone did for others. By doing this, Jesus was humbling himself and showing how much he loved His disciple’s, performing a task set aside for the lowest of servant’s in almost any household at that time. This was shocking to them for He was their teacher, master and Lord, but He did not put Himself above them, He simply showed them love in action. As we show others love we are living out the love that is a fruit of the Spirit, and as we speak to them of this love, we show that the love of the Father is in us.
God shows His love to us in many ways, but one that we can see on a daily basis is that He takes care of our needs by clothing and feeding us, by seeing to our spiritual, mental and physical needs. How could He not provide for his children, after all Isaiah 49:16 tells us “Behold, I have graven thee on the palms of my hands,..” What love! We need only to pray to Him, a blessing in and of itself, and He always listens to us, that is a form of love in itself. When we need His help we have only to ask for it. When our Heavenly Father answers our prayers He does what He knows is best for us, we may not always understand His answer at the moment, but we have to trust that it is what is right. His love is always available to us, we need only to submit to His will and listen to Him, for He loves us more than we will ever be able to understand, and if we are truly seeking for His will in our lives so that His name will be glorified, then the answers to our prayers will be received with thanksgiving and praise to His name, no matter what the answer is.
Our Lord Jesus Christ willingly came to this earth to teach us how to live, how to love, so that when we leave this world we can go to our heavenly home to be with Him in in His glory. He came to heal, to allow us lost souls to drink from the fountain of His living waters, how great of love is that! No one is able to love as selflessly as Christ loves us, but that doesn’t mean we should not strive to. If we open ourselves to the Holy Spirit to work through us, we can love like we never dreamed possible. I know at times my heart is still a bit rocky, the old nature still comes out occasionally, but through Jesus’s love for me, my love for Him and for others increases every day.
It was innocent blood that was shed for our sins.
What a blessing it is to feel and know this incredible love, a love I had know idea existed before, a love that has no end, that I will be blessed to experience now and forever more without end. What a blessing it has been to feel His love and guidance in this study. My hope is that I have glorified God through it, for He is worthy of all my love.
Praise God!
