1John 4:16(NLT) says, “We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.” God’s love has no equal. It is patient, kind, unconditional, and limitless. He loves us more than our minds can comprehend. His love is so extraordinary and intimate that He makes each of us feel as though we’re His special one. We need to feel loved by God to function in life as the spiritually strong children that He has called us to be. We need to feel loved by Him to love ourselves and to love others in a healthy and fulfilling way. No matter the relationship or the person, if our goal is to live the more than abundant life that Jesus Christ made available, we must learn to live in God’s love and to love others through Him.
God is real! It’s never about trying to convince people of this, but to affirm His greatness and the unfathomable nature of His being. He is more real, true, and perfect than any human being could ever hope to be. He tells us in Isaiah 55:9(NLT), “For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” God is love, and His love is the glue that holds the entire universe—all that there is—together. His brilliant and magnificent thoughts have woven the bountiful tapestry of all that we survey, and He alone sustains everything. In all of the universe and in all of eternity, His power is unmatched. This is the God we adore and can’t live without.
Why humans? Love must have a target. It’s an action word, and it must be backed by the commitment, compassion, generosity, and tenderness that continually stir and convey its conviction. We can’t just say it and expect the fullness of its expression. For instance, if the person who owns my affection said to me that they love me in return, but never did anything to show it, I would not be convinced of their love. So, if love is in words only, it is not love; it’s something else. Love is a powerful reality because it motivates, creates, produces, and changes things for the better.
Our Heavenly Father is a God of love, and we are the target of His affection. Genesis 1:26 tells us that He made us, humans, in His image, and He has done everything that can be done to demonstrate the eternal, staggeringly devoted, and infallible nature of His love towards us. Deuteronomy 4:24(ESV) says, “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” Reading this verse, we can’t help but get an image of a fire that burns intensely, but never dies out. This gives us a window into the heart of God. His love for us burns continually, because we’re His kids.
He wanted a family on which to lavish His love. He chose us, His created beings, and He did so when we were our most unlovable. Romans 5:88-11(NLT) says, “8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. 9 And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. 10 For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. 11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.”
Now, because of what God has accomplished for us through Jesus Christ, we have the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Romans 5:5-6(MSG) says, “5 In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary – we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit! 6 Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway.” Because the Holy Spirit has come to live inside us, we have the love of Jesus Christ in our hearts, and we can love people far and above beyond our greatest imaginations.
Some of us are not living out the reality of God’s love that was shown to us in Christ. We are sitting on all that power and refusing to be motivated by it to infinitely change something or someone for the better. We must come to terms with the reality that we are obligated to Christ to do this. The love of God that is generously poured in us through the Holy Spirit will cause us to leave a legacy of God’s goodness, but when we live as though we don’t know or trust this, we miss tons of opportunities to be a blessing, and therefore, we miss tons of opportunities to receive a blessing.
Ephesians 4:31-32(MSG) says, “Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you.” Many of us have underestimated the level of love we are capable of giving. It’s not just about words, but about walking in the Spirit so we can hear from the Father about what our loved ones need. It’s executing God’s directives as He instructs us to do things that really connect with their hearts. Too many of us are missing this.
Our lack of knowledge and faith about who we are in Christ and what we can do through his love, power, and authority has caused us to miss out. We can change this, and we should. 1John 4:8(NLT) says, “But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” Our Heavenly Father has revealed this truth to the entire world, and He has left it to every man, woman, and child to decide for themselves if they place their faith in the truthful reality of His love. He didn’t create us to be puppets. We are not marching about as our strings are pulled. He created us to have free-will, and if we use it to become givers and receivers of His love, we will fulfill His call, and live powerfully and peacefully through Christ.■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Loving God’s Way”, written for Springfield Fellowship © 2023. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
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