What is love? The Scripture tells us that “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them” (1 John 4:16 NIV). If you were to explain to someone that “God is love,” what would you say? How would you explain that concept to another person? What does that mean to you, and how do you live God’s love out in everyday life? Let us search the Scripture to develop our argument more clearly?
Let us begin in prayer. “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen” (Eph 3:16-21 NIV). To God be the glory!!
How well do you understand His amazing love? I pray that we grow in our understanding of His love because it is His love that we are to put into action. Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35 NIV). “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love…I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command…I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other” (John 15:9-17 NIV). How are we doing in fulfilling His command to love one another as He loved us? Are we putting His great love into action? We are to “let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another…whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom 13:8-10 NIV). “If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing right” (Jam 2:8 NIV). It sounds simple. All we have to do is love one another as Christ loved us. Are we truly willing to do as Christ did? Are we willing to put His sacrificial love into action?
What are some of the characteristics of Christ’s sacrificial love and the importance it holds for us to put His amazing love into action? “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails…And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:1-13 NIV). Praise be to God!!
So, how do we put this amazing love into action? We cannot accomplish this through our power. The only way we can love well is through Christ and Christ alone. You can love well “because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world…We are from God… Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 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. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit…God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister” (1 John 4:4-21 NIV). How beautiful is that? God’s love is made complete in us!! We are the body of Christ, and we are to live like Christ and through His beauty within we love others the way He loved us. Praise be to God!!
Let us bathe all of this in prayer as we grow deeper in wisdom, understanding God’s amazing love and learn to put His love into action. “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God” (Phil 1:9-11 NIV). Seek to know the depth of God’s love and then serve others in the fullness of that love. To God be the glory!! Amen.
