8 He who is destitute of love has never had any knowledge of God; because God is love.
Celui qui n’aime pas n’a pas connu Dieu, car Dieu est amour.
El que no ama, no conoce á Dios; porque Dios es amor.
What Is Love?
Saturday, as many of you know, was the birthday of John Lennon, he would've been 70 this year. In what most likely is one of his most famous songs, “all you need is love”. And, in reality, he wasn't far off of the mark.
But the world is not a place filled with love, is it? Most people are selfish. The Bible says that God is love. And that he was walking in love is abiding in God. God's kind of love is unconditional. There are no prerequisites that must be fulfilled in order for God to love you. God loves you just the way you are—and he loves you so much that he won't leave you the way you are, either!
God's love was demonstrated by the ultimate sacrifice of his own son, the Lord Jesus. The Bible says that God so loved the world that he gave his only born son, that whoever would believe in him, would not perish, but live, and have eternal life.
To be an authentic Christian means to walk the same way that Jesus Christ did. Jesus loved everyone. When one reads the New Testament we find Jesus angry at the religious leaders of his day—the Pharisees. Who were the Pharisees?
Wikipedia describes the Pharisees as follows:
An important binary in the New Testament is the opposition between law and love. Accordingly, the New Testament, particularly the Synoptic Gospels, presents the Pharisees as obsessed with man-made rules (especially concerning purity) whereas Jesus is more concerned with God’s love; the Pharisees scorn sinners whereas Jesus seeks them out. (The Gospel of John, which is the only gospel where Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea are mentioned, portrays the sect as more divided and more willing to debate) Because of the New Testament's frequent depictions of Pharisees as self-righteous rule-followers (see also Woes of the Pharisees), the word "pharisee" (and its derivatives: "pharisaical", etc.) has come into semi-common usage in English to describe a hypocritical and arrogant person who places the letter of the law above its spirit.
And yet, Jesus loved the Pharisees. Jesus Christ died on the cross for the Pharisees. However, he loves the Pharisees so much that he told them the truth—he told them what they needed to hear not what they wanted to hear.
God love is not license nor is it legalism. God will love you, and to let you do whatever you want, he will even let you choose the path to hell, because of his love he will not violate your free will. Love is not license. The Bible says that the parent to disciplines as child loves his child. God, at times disciplines us, because he loves us. And the Bible also says that discipline at the time was not pleasant, but it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness.
I think that many people have a misconception of what God is like. God, is not a in heaven with a baseball bat just waiting for you to make a mistake, so he can hit you. That's not the God of the Bible. I've read through the entire Bible numerous times. And the more that authentic Christians read through the Bible the more we get to know God's character. God's character is consistent.
Even in God's dealing with the nation of Israel which it called out to be his special people, was done with the utmost of his love, and their best interest at heart. Yet, even through a long history of disobedience by his people, we never see God say that he didn't love them any longer. He pled with them to repent. His heart was always tender towards them.
God's heart is tender towards you. Even if you're living in disobedience, that does not change God's attitude of love towards your heart. God's love for you it is not based on your performance or you're fulfilling of certain criteria by which finally God will love you. God's will is for you to be obedient. His love for you is unconditional. Your obedience or disobedience won't change God's love for you. However, your disobedience to God is a demonstration of your lack of love for him. And the consequences of our disobedience are eternal.
God's love is patient, God's love is kind, God in his great mercy showed us the pathway to be like his son Jesus, by means of picking up our cross, denying ourselves, our ambitions, and following in the footsteps of the Master. The love of Jesus was manifest in his forthright speaking to the Pharisees, his tender love for little children, and his loving acceptance of social outcasts of his day.
Think of how it must have been to be a tax collector, like Matthew, part of a despised segment of first century Jewish culture under Roman occupation. Tax collectors were despised. And yet Jesus made a person like Matthew, a despised tax collector, feel loved so much that he invited them to dinner. We see in another incidence of Jesus's love for the outcast when Zacchaeus was up in the tree, just wanting to get a glimpse of Jesus, Jesus called them down to have dinner with him. This love that Jesus had for such an outcast Zacchaeus caused Zacchaeus to repent of his sins. The love that he felt from Jesus was the trigger point in his conversion.
In our daily lives, to be a true authentic remnant Christian, one must walk in the love of Jesus. We are tested daily. Many times it's not strangers but with those close to us with that our love is tested. When a person comes to know Jesus, the Holy Spirit of God comes to dwell on that person, and the fruit of the Holy Spirit, not our fruit, his love.
Those that are born of God, those that truly have repented of their sins and been born again, now have the ability to love the unlovable, and to overflow with the lovingkindness and mercy of Jesus Christ to the world that is lost in a thick blanket of darkness when they shine is bright lights.
We must walk in God's love. And the proof of our love for God, the way our love is tested and tried, is in our relationships with our neighbors, especially with those that are closest to us.
Again, in the same letter of first John that describes God as love, he says that perfect love casts out fear, because fear has tormented. The answers to our fears is to be overflowing with the fullness God's love
The apostle John writes in that passage, “let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loves is born of God, he that does not love, does not know God, for God is love!”
God is love
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