This Sunday, November 11th, we will look at Chapter 13 of Donald Miller’s book, Blue Like Jazz. Miller learns from his friend Paul that marriage is so much more than he ever thought it would be (p. 146). “One of the ways that God shows me He loves me is through Danielle, and one of the ways that God shows Danielle He loves her is through me.” He goes on to say, “We learn that we are lovable or unlovable from other people...that is why God tells us so many times to love each other.” Pretty good stuff...it’s worth musing about a minute.
Dictionaries usually defines love something like this "an intense affection for another person based on familial or personal ties". Often this "intense affection" stems from a sexual attraction for and strong emotional ties toward that other person. We love other people, or we say we love other people, when we are attracted to them and when they make us feel good.
Notice that a key phrase in the dictionary definition of love is the phrase "based on". This phrase implies that we love conditionally; in other words, we love someone because they fulfill a condition that we require before we can love them. People also love based on feelings and emotions that can change from one moment to the next. A couple may go through a rough patch in their marriage, and they no longer "feel" love for their spouse, so they call it quits.
Can anyone really comprehend "unconditional" love we learn about in Scripture? Many use the example the love that parents have for their children is as close to unconditional love as we can get without the help of God's love in our lives. We continue to love our children through good times and bad, and we don't stop loving them if they don't meet the expectations we may have for them. We make a choice to love our children even when we consider them unlovable; our love doesn't stop when we don't "feel" love for them (i.e., angry, detachment, disappointment). This is similar to God's love for us, but God's love transcends the human definition of love to a point that is nearly impossible for us to comprehend.
God is Love: It is truly Unconditional
God is Love, and His love is very different from human love. God's love is unconditional---it's not based on feelings or emotions. He doesn't love us because we're lovable (doesn’t this relate well to BLJ) or because we make Him feel good; He loves us because He is love. He created us to have a loving relationship with Him, and He sacrificed His own Son (who also willingly died for us) to restore that relationship. (John 3:16)
The Bible tells us that "God is Love" (1 John 4:8). When the Scriptures say, "God is love," they aren't telling us that God is some vage, warm fuzzy feeling of love. The writers of Scripture weren't saying that in our limited form of human love we will find God. Not at all -- in fact, when we read that God is love in the Bible, this means that God defines love. And when we say that God defines love, we don't mean that He defines it like the dictionary might define something -- we mean that God is the very definition of love itself. There is no such thing as love without God. As hard as we might try, we cannot define love outside of knowing God..yes—now love is beginning to make sense and so is Chapter 13 of BLJ!
God is Love: True Love Only Comes Through a Relationship With Him
God is Love! As such, true love -- God's love -- can be summed up 1 John 4:7-11: "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. “
God’s romance is pretty powerful, uh?
Muse on this a moment: I guess if I really want to know this love - true love – more and better I need to get to know God more deeply. If I don’t or don’t place this as the priority of my life, what does that say about me? Selah
Grace,
Bob
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