06/05/2019
How do you love God? Do you love Him like you say you love the taste of an apple, or some other sweet fruit? Maybe you love Him like that good book you read the other day? I hope neither of these is a true comparison of how you love God because we are to love God as He loves us... like Jesus loves Him.
“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
1 John 4:8 ESV
When I first met my wife, those many years ago, I was at first infatuated with her, and wanted to be with her every moment of the day. I wanted to know all about who she was, what she liked and disliked, and what her plans were for the future. But as time passed that obsession with her changed to something more quiet and exhibited itself as something more peaceful, like long walks together, studying for periods of time interspersed with passionate kisses, and reaching out to touch one another. Finally after many other subtle transformations and 43 years of aging in these bodies, we have come to understand the depth of our love for one another. To get here we had to survive all those years when making passionate love seemed to be what love was, when we thought that making it through the time of raising children and feeling our love for them must have been what love was, or surviving the hardships and troubles of life that must have been the essence of love, or perhaps the quiet house, and getting to know one another again without the children... yes that must finally be what love is. Yet here we are, after all these experiences, and having lived through all these facets of love, and we are walking through yet another manifestation of love... it is a quiet dependence on one another, not wanting to go to the store unless we go together, depending on each other for every aging care when we are sick, soothing each other when we are hurting, the conversations interspersed with stillness, that moment of gladness sitting with our first cup of coffee in the morning, and just being comfortable as one... not just of one flesh (as marriage is described in the Bible), but much deeper... as one existence... one person in every sense of the word. Our love affair with God and Jesus Christ goes through a maturation process like this as well, and with each step finally we think we get it... God’s love is all of these things and more, and it will only be realized in its fullness when we are finally with Him in eternity... or will there still be more awaiting us?
“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
1 John 4:9-11 ESV
I read a thought on this subject written by Charles Spurgeon regarding the love that the early church exhibited for the Lord which I will share with you now...
“The love the felt towards the Lord was not a quiet emotion that they hid inside themselves, in some secret chamber of their souls. It wasn’t something they only spoke of in private, when they assembled on the first day of the week and sang hymns to honor the crucified Jesus. No, it was a passion of such vehement , all-consuming energy that it was visible in even their most common glances.” - Charles Spurgeon
Our love for God is perfected as we practice loving one another; it stems from His being within us, and in this way He teaches us about the love he feels for us.
“No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.”
1 John 4:12-13 ESV
Allowing God to abide in us, to take up residence and show us that being of one flesh is just the beginning of something much deeper, much more complete, and eternally rewarding. Marriage, when entered into and lived completely as God intended, should be a mirror that not only reflects His love for us, as we love one another, but an education in all the facets of loving that are rolled up into His endless, and boundless love for us. In this way we come to know how to love Him, just as Jesus did.
“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.”
1 John 4:16-17 ESV
So our loving God is like His loving us. It is the taste of an Apple after all, and it is the infatuation, the passion, the commitment, the nurturing, the letting go, the welcoming back, the noisy celebrations, and the quiet moments. It is tested in arguments and made more perfect in the make up kisses, it is all this and more. Loving God is not just one, or some, of these things, it is all of them mixed up, rolled up, kneaded, and patted into a sweet cake... then baked to a golden, and delicious brown... it is the aroma, taste, and feel of life.
Prayer:
Father, thank you for the width, depth, and complexity of your love for us. Thank you Lord for not only giving us your love, but teaching us to love you with all our heart, soul and mind. Thank you Holy Father for our life which should be lived as more than the rising and falling of our lungs, or the beating of our hearts, but as our very breath, and blood, which are the fullness of your love. Help us Lord to love one another as ourselves, to love our wives as Jesus loves the Church, to honor our husbands as you have commanded, and to love you above all else in our lives. You said there is no love greater than to give one’s life for a friend, and then you sent your Son Jesus to offer His life as a sacrifice for us. Out of the depths of my love for you I offer you my life Father; I yield it to you for your purposes. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you my God of love and grace. I praise your name and sing songs of love to you. Great is your goodness and love! Great is your mercy and grace, and Limitless your love for me. Help me to glorify you in the love you have given me.
“Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.”
Psalms 100:4-5 ESV
Rich Forbes