Love God's Way

Isn't God's love awesome!? I am so grateful to know the love of the Lord. It's the joy of all things good in life. This morning during my quiet time I was finally able to make a journal entry about the passing of my father-in-law, Yogi Denson. Yes I cried again, but it was good to remember such a wonderful man and to have had the privilege to know him for 24 years. The thing I will miss most is that my children won't be able to spend time with him. They were always number 1 in his heart. He loved them so very much. Whenever we did something as a family and invited them to come you were 100% guaranteed they would be there and happy to do it. I pray their grandaddy's memory and legacy will live in their hearts until the day we meet again with Jesus at our side.

I spoke last Sunday from 1 John 4:7-11 on God's love, appropriate perhaps, with Valentines day being yesterday.

We discovered a very important truth, which is that love is of God for God is love.

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

I have always been especially impacted by the statement, “God is love.”

We have all seen it or heard it, but what does it mean?

In describing the nature of God the apostle John will also say, “God is spirit” (John 4:24). God is Spirit in that God is not flesh and blood although it is true that Christ took on flesh and is even now in possession of a glorified body like which we too shall one day inherit.

But being Spirit God is not limited to space and time in the same way we creatures are limited. Even though you and I may be miles apart, and you will read this at some time after I write it, you can know that wherever you are God is with you even as right now He is also with me.

John also says “God is light” (1 John 1:5). God is light means God is holy, where light is a symbol of purity and holiness, and darkness is the symbol of sin and separation.

But I think we tend to think more highly of the statement that God is love. But let's also be clear. This does not mean that love is God. Not all love we may express is a holy love.

Love does not define God, but God defines love. Not all that the world in its fallen nature calls love is a love pure and undefiled, that is, the love of God.

Rather love is defined by the nature and character of God. If we would truly know love, then we must know God.

Thus we look to God in order to know love. True love is found in a personal relationship with God and expressed here and now in personal relationship with other people (image bearers of God).

That is why John says, “and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”

To love as God loves is to love from God as the source. In this regard John says we must “know God.”

This isn’t merely a knowledge of God like I might know there are whales in the ocean. I’ve honestly never seen one much less have a personal relationship with one, but I know they are there.

Instead, to know someone in the biblical sense indicates the type of intimacy even as Adam knew Eve and bore children. (Gen 4:1, 25).

To love, we must know God personally, intimately, and spiritually. Thus love is the true test of the Christian soul and character.

When we are born again, we are born as children of God, thus the love of God is born in us. John warns, if we have not the love of God in us, then we are not children of God. So John says, “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

If we have not God we have not pure love. If we have not pure love we have not God, for God is love. It's an axiom, pure, simple, and undeniable.

Beloved as children of God, as those who know God, who love God, who live in communion with God, it is impossible not to love. Just as it would be impossible to pick up a red hot coal and not be burned, it is impossible to encounter the red hot love of God and not be changed. 

So here is the question… do we know God as love or do we know God as some other god?

Some want to know God as celestial Santa Claus, dispensing toys (health, wealth, ease, etc.) from heaven.

Some want to know God as a little idol of their own design, the proverbial "god in a box" whom they can manipulate with their own religious self righteousness. This is the god we make up and who serves us.

Some want to know God as the impassive watch maker who just wound everything up and now sits back and observes its movements. They care nothing for God. They reckon they will leave God alone if He will leave them alone. No harm, no foul.

But God is none of these things. God is the great lover of our souls and we are the children of God's love. 

Praise God!