11/05/2021
As we study and dig into God’s Word we often stumble upon truths that seem to be hidden in the most interesting, and often obscure, places. Today, as I was reading Romans 5, in support of my morning devotional, I found just such a treasure… a pearl of great value that had escaped me previously. Romans 5 begins with a discussion of faith, but tucked into the fifth verse we receive a revelation regarding God’s love. This verse reveals to us the source of His love in us. So, if we are struggling with love in our lives, and wrestling with how to obey the commandments dealing with it, then this is our help… are we loving as we should?
“and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
Romans 5:5 ESV
We define many things in our life using the word “love”, and this demonstrates our confusion regarding it. A man becomes physically attracted to a woman, and we call this love, when it is actually something else… it might simply be an interest in who she is, perhaps infatuation, or the more physical attraction of lust. These things might draw us to one another, and we often call them falling in love, or making love, but in reality they are something quite different. Love is more than being enticed mentally, enamored with someone, or having our sexual desire aroused, these are things that each circle about love like planets around the sun, but they are not love itself, and without the relationship with the sun that keeps them in their appropriate orbits they are simply chaos, and often become twisted, or sinful. They are moving about without direction, out of control, and only existing for themselves… serving no master.
“And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
Colossians 3:14 ESV
These acts, and actions we often call love are by themselves without purpose or reason… to solve this chaotic, and often detrimental behavior God, who is love, placed himself at the center of our spiritual, emotional, physical, and mental, universe to bring order to our wandering as it works against His will. In this way we are told to place God first in our lives…
““Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
Matthew 22:36-38 ESV
So if all these things are not love then what is love? Well, love is that unseen and indescribable something that exists between all these acts, actions, and feelings, in our lives that in our ignorance we we have, for the lack of a better word, called love. Love is the order of life, emanating from God that gives purpose to all of the ways that we feel about one another, the world around us, and even God Himself. Love is God…
“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
In God’s Holy Word we witness three great manifestations of love, God’s love. In the Bible we read that these three have established, and reestablished God’s order. We have God’s Love given to us during the initial creation. We have the love of God given through Jesus Christ that fulfills God’s law, and establishes a new order (Covenant), and, we have God’s love that is poured into us through the Holy Spirit.
Through these three manifestations we find God’s love as we know it today, but we still stumble in our efforts to understand and define it, so the best we can do is to talk about what we can see, and feel. Love is like the wind that we can’t see, unless it picks up something such as dust. However, we still don’t see the wind… only the dust. Love is much like this, and we read passages of scripture that do this very thing… they define love by showing us the dust. Let’s read how Paul uses dust in his letter to the Corinthians in an attempt to describe love for us…
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.”
1 Corinthians 13:4-10 ESV
One day we will know how to perfectly define love, but until that day comes we are bound by our lack of understanding, and must lean on God for such things as becoming interested in one another, infatuated with that person who will become our spouse, and having sex within the bounds of God’s commandments . We know love because we see God’s order in it, we see righteousness in it, and we see relationship that makes all of life function together as it works to fulfill God’s will. We know love because it weaves us all together, and binds us in ways that are so strong that we would even give our lives for one another. This is love… the wind that moves us through life, and into eternity. Are we loving as God loves us? Are we loving as men and women should?
Prayer:
Father, thank you for loving us, and pouring your love into us so that we can share it with all those around us. Thank you for the order we find in your creation, and in our lives, as your love binds all things together for good. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who we can’t see with our eyes, but can feel in the love you have for us, and the true love we experience that establishes relationships, with you, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and everyone we touch, as we obey your commandments, and do your will. Praised be your name Father for our families, and all those we are bound to by your gift of love. Merciful are you who so loved us that you sent your Son Jesus to live, die, and be resurrected, to redeem us from sin, and reestablish your order in our lives, and this world. Wash us in the blood He shed for us, so that we will be pure in our prayer closets, and when we stand before you to be judged. Call us your children, and love us just as you love Jesus! Welcome us home Father, and keep us in your loving embrace forevermore. Open our eyes at that moment to the full understanding of what love is so that we can love you as we should… with all that we are, and will ever be!
Rich Forbes