One more day sharing some thoughts about what the Bible has to say about love. It is crucial for us to understand that love comes from God. John wrote about this quite a bit in his Gospel and his Epistles.
1 John 4:7-11 7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Everything that I’ve shared about love the last week only makes sense if you use the proper meaning, the love that the Bible speaks of, the love that comes from God. The love we show is to be a response to the love which God has shown. The way God loves us tells us what our love for others is to be. God’s love is steadfast and enduring. His love is patient and kind. His love is giving, with our best interests in mind. His love is action. He made a covenant with His people, a promise. Even though we sinful humans beings break the trust and betray the confidence, God does not bail out on us. God loves…and loves…and loves…and loves…and loves some more. God is Christ on the cross, loving with an everlasting love, a love that would not let you go.
1 John 3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
Jesus gave the example of love to follow. Our love is a response to the faithfulness of God, His love that is the greatest.
1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us.
There is nowhere you can ever go that the love of God cannot find you. No matter how severe your shortcomings, no matter how frustrating your failures, no matter how difficult your defeats in life, the love of God, made plain in Christ, is able to comfort you and make you whole. That is done for us over and over again in our lives. And that is what we must do for others. We serve one another because He first served us. We care for one another because he first cared for us. We encourage each other because He first encouraged us. We love because He first loved us with that greatest love of all. When you and I are covered with that love made visible in the cross, when that love fills us and overwhelms us, we come to know that love, the love of God in Christ, is the greatest– ever.
