It is often said that love, the God kind of love is an action and that is true in the life of a christian we must continually choose to exercise the love of God that has been shed abroad in our hearts.
But when we see and hear that God is love:
That everything he has ever done or said is love, all that the word says that describes the father, or the son and the holy spirit are simply put, are a part of Love. or explanation of love also.
Love is: Joh 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Love is: Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
Love is: Jn 1:1 � In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Love is: Jn 17:17 � Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
Love is: Ex 15:26 And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee.
Love is my Father: Ro 8:15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
Ga 4:6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
Oh you could go on and on about what love is and that is only one small aspect of love.
Richard one statement you make and I not ashamed of is that Jesus is the Gospel and he is the fullness of prosperity, spiritually, physically, materially and financially.
I am not ashamed of the lord Jesus and his Gospel.
Ro 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
2Co 7:14 For if I have boasted any thing to him of you, I am not ashamed; but as we spake all things to you in truth, even so our boasting, which I made before Titus, is found a truth.
2Ti 1:12 For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
Love is the willingness to give oneself for the good of the beloved.
Christ taught this truth in brief when he told us, "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). Love is ultimately the willingness to do whatever it takes to bring good to its object. Christ displayed the perfection of love when he gave his life for our good. In order to follow his example, we ought to be willing to give ourselves for the good of our brothers. This leads us to the question, "In what does the good of my brother ultimately consist?"
The good of man is ultimately the true knowledge of God.
When Christ spoke more specifically of the nature of the good that he was giving his life to accomplish in those whom the Father gave him, it was invariably wrapped up in the knowledge of God. "This is life eternal," he proclaims in his high priestly prayer, before delivering himself up in our behalf, "that [those you have given me] might know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." And a little later, "Father, I will that they also, whom you have given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which you have given me" (John 17:24).
True knowledge of God comes from a right understanding of the bible.
Hence, Christ's prayer included the following request and accompanying observation: "Sanctify them through your truth: your word is truth."
Therefore, love is the willingness to give oneself so that the beloved one may understand the bible more accurately.
Christian love, that is, the sort of love Christ perfectly displayed and which he commands us to emulate, demands that we be willing to give of ourselves so that our brothers are aided in coming to a deeper and more accurate knowledge of God. This in turn demands that we be willing to labor for doctrinal precision by submitting our reasoning to the pages of scripture, the only place where we may confidently learn the deep things of God. Doctrinal precision, far from being the counter-balancing reality to Christian love, and therefore mutually exclusive of it, is in fact the great means through which Christian love expresses itself. We may know a man loves the heathen tribes if he is willing to give up his life in order to go to them with the good news of Jesus. And we may know that a man loves his Christian brothers if he is willing to give of his life to confront doctrinal error and use the light of scriptures to point them to a deeper knowledge of the God whom to know is itself eternal life.
This brief survey should make clear that the need for Christian love is no reason for minimizing doctrinal precision. The same may be said of Christian unity, when its scriptural nature is perceived. Let's mention a few truths we may learn from some pertinent texts.
Unity is shared commonality in an essential reality.
The apostle John assures us, in his first epistle, that "if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin" (I John 1:7). In other words, if we are true believers, whose sins have genuinely been cleansed by Christ's blood (as may be perceived by how we walk), then by virtue of that fact alone we have fellowship with one another. It is not said that, because we have been cleansed we ought to have fellowship with one another; but rather, if we display that we have truly been cleansed, we do have fellowship with one another. (It is possible that this "one another" actually intends the fellowship between us and God; but even if so, the basic point is not thereby invalidated � the third verse of the same chapter demands that the reality of our fellowship with the Father necessitate fellowship among ourselves, as well.) In other words, our fellowship consists in the reality that we have all been cleansed by the blood of Christ. This is what unites us. It would take a reversal of this reality in the life of one believer or another to separate them. If both are in Christ, they are not divided from one another.
Unity is displayed to the extent that the shared essential reality is understood.
When Paul was dealing with the divisions and factions in the Corinthian church, he asked the rhetorical question, "Is Christ divided?" (I Corinthians 1:13). In doing so, he was assuming that if Christians were truly divided, then Christ himself is divided. But since Christ is not divided, neither can those who are in Christ be divided. In giving the appearance of division, the Corinthian believers were bringing reproach upon Christ by presenting to the world a false reality. They were living as if they were all in Christ and yet divided from each other, so that Christ appeared to be divided from himself. In reality they were not divided at all: Christ had effectually made in himself "one new man" of those who were formerly at enmity (Ephesians 2:15-16). The Corinthian problem was not that they had essentially broken their unity, but that they failed to recognize and display their unity in Christ.
The display of unity demands an increased understanding of doctrinal reality.
It is clear throughout scriptures that our reality should motivate our practice: who we are should be the foundation for what we do. We should not act righteous so that we may become righteous, but we should act righteous because we already have been accounted righteous in Christ. So we should not act like we are united in order to become united, but we should act united because we already are united in the same doctrine. How then do we go about the process of displaying more clearly the reality of our essential doctrinal unity? There is no other way than to come to a fuller recognition of the extent of the unity we have. Because there is "one body, and one Spirit� one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all" (Ephesians 4:4-6); therefore, we should be involved in the work of edification of the body of Christ until we all arrive at the "unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God" (Ephesians 4:13). Our struggle for unity in the body of Christ has everything to do with growing in our doctrinal understanding. The more we see the true nature of the doctrine we all have in common, the more our lives will display the essential unity that we have been brought into by the blood of Christ. The display of Christian unity, far from being a cause for glossing over doctrinal discrepancies, should be the motivation for pursuing ever greater doctrinal precision. It is instructive that, in so many of the passages in which we are commanded to pursue unity, such terms as "thinking the same thing," being "likeminded," or "thinking one thing in Christ" are employed (cf. Philippians 1:27; 2:1-2; 4:2, for example). A growth in the practical outworking of essential unity among believers is enabled only by an increase in precise doctrinal knowledge.
It is singularly tragic that love and unity are so often employed as excuses for minimizing the importance of doctrinal precision. Love and unity demand that we be intensely interested in doctrine. Doctrine is the pathway to greater love and unity, and the means by which that love and unity is expressed. If we are one in Christ, and if we love each other as Christ loved us, then let us labor for the edification of the body by giving our lives to learning the great truths about God from the pages of his word, teaching those scriptural truths to other Christians as we have opportunity, and learning from them as the Spirit opens their hearts to see more of Christ in the bible. In this way our love and unity will thrive.
It is also tragic that doctrinal purity is so often employed as an excuse to set before the world a picture of Christ divided. There is nothing doctrinally correct about a divided Christ or a divided Christianity. If we "separate from" or cut off from united fellowship any professing believer, we are sending the message, "This is not a Christian." There may be cause for doing so, if the professing believer by his teachings or actions has indicated that he is not truly a Christian. But to separate from a true Christian because of doctrinal differences is not only not scriptural; it is a denial of true Christian doctrine and a blight on the name of Christ. If we separate from a brother, we are considering him a heathen. There is no room to refuse to worship with him in church, because he has a different opinion on church government, or some such thing, but to continue to chat with him in a friendly manner over coffee, recognizing him as a true Christian � but just not a Christian of my particular camp. If he is doctrinally immature, then his place in the body may not be a position of teaching or some other place of authority. But wherever else his place is not, it is certainly not merely at the coffee table, with only the most basic of doctrinal discussions permitted. And it is not at the church down the street, which happens to see things in a similar light. If there is a Christian (or group of Christians) down the street, we are responsible to be laboring for his growth in Christ, just as he is responsible for us. To refuse to acknowledge that is a doctrinal error just as surely as any wrong opinion he may have on any other secondary issues is a doctrinal error.
As Christians, let us labor in love for the fuller recognition and expression of our essential doctrinal unity. Let us do this because we love each other as Christ loved us; and let us do it because there is a watching world that needs to see a truer picture of Christ.
There are many today who talk about the love of God, who are total strangers to the God of love. The Divine love is commonly regarded as a species of amiable weakness, a sort of good-natured indulgence; it is reduced to a mere sickly sentiment, patterned after human emotion. Now the truth is that on this, as on everything else, our thoughts need to be formed and regulated by what is revealed thereon in Holy Scripture. That there is urgent need for this is apparent not only from the ignorance which so generally prevails, but also from the low state of spirituality which is now so sadly evident everywhere among professing Christians. How little real love there is for God. One chief reason for this is because our hearts are so little occupied with His wondrous love for His people. The better we are acquainted with His love�its character, fulness, blessedness�the more will our hearts be drawn out in love to Him.
1. The love of God is uninfluenced. By this we mean, there was nothing whatever in the objects of His love to call it into exercise, nothing in the creature to attract or prompt it. The love which one creature has for another is because of something in them; but the love of God is free, spontaneous, uncaused. The only reason why God loves any is found in His own sovereign will: "The Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose you because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: but because the Lord loved thee" (Deut. 7:7,8). God has loved His people from everlasting, and therefore nothing of the creature can be the cause of what is found in God from eternity. He loves from Himself: "according to His own purpose" (2 Tim. 1:9).
"We love Him, because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19). God did not love us because we loved Him, but He loved us before we had a particle of love for Him. Had God loved us in return for ours, then it would not be spontaneous on His part; but because He loved us when we were loveless, it is clear that His love was uninfluenced. It is highly important if God is to be honored and the heart of His child established, that we should be quite clear upon this precious truth. God�s love for me, and for each of "His own," was entirely unmoved by anything in them. What was there in me to attract the heart of God? Absolutely nothing. But, to the contrary, everything to repel Him, everything calculated to make Him loathe me�sinful, depraved, a mass of corruption, with "no good thing" in me.
"What was there in me that could merit esteem,
Or give the Creator delight?
�Twas even so, Father, I ever must sing,
Because it seemed good, in Thy sight."
2. It is eternal. This of necessity. God Himself is eternal, and God is love; therefore, as God Himself had no beginning, His love had none. Granted that such a concept far transcends the grasp of our feeble minds, nevertheless, where we cannot comprehend, we can bow in adoring worship. How clear is the testimony of Jeremiah 31:3, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee." How blessed to know that the great and holy God loved His people before heaven and earth were called into existence, that He had set His heart upon them from all eternity. Clear proof is this that His love is spontaneous, for He loved them endless ages before they had any being.
The same precious truth is set forth in Ephesians 1:4,5, "According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him. In love having predestinated us." What praise should this evoke from each of His children! How tranquilizing for the heart: since God�s love toward me had no beginning, it can have no ending! Since it be true that "from everlasting to everlasting" He is God, and since God is "love," then it is equally true that "from everlasting to everlasting" He loves His people.
3. It is sovereign. This also is self-evident. God Himself is sovereign, under obligations to none, a law unto Himself, acting always according to His own imperial pleasure. Since God be sovereign, and since He be love, it necessarily follows that His love is sovereign. Because God is God, He does as He pleases; because God is love, He loves whom He pleases. Such is His own express affirmation: "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated" (Rom. 9:19). There was no more reason in Jacob why he should be the object of Divine love, than there was in Esau. They both had the same parents, and were born at the same time, being twins; yet God loved the one and hated the other! Why? Because it pleased Him to do so.
The sovereignty of God�s love necessarily follows from the fact that it is uninfluenced by anything in the creature. Thus, to affirm that the cause of His love lies in God Himself, is only another way of saying, He loves whom He pleases. For a moment, assume the opposite. Suppose God�s love were regulated by anything else than His will, in such a case He would love by rule, and loving by rule He would be under a law of love, and then so far from being free, God would Himself be ruled by law. "In love having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to"�what? Some excellency which He foresaw in them? No; what then? "According to the good pleasure of His will" (Eph. 1:4,5).
4. It is infinite. Everything about God is infinite. His essence fills heaven and earth. His wisdom is illimitable, for He knows everything of the past, present and future. His power is unbounded, for there is nothing too hard for Him. So His love is without limit. There is a depth to it which none can fathom; there is a height to it which none can scale; there is a length and breadth to it which defies measurement, by any creature-standard. Beautifully is this intimated in Ephesians 2:4: But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us: the word "great" there is parallel with the "God so loved" of John 3:16. It tells us that the love of God is so transcendent it cannot be estimated.
No tongue can fully express the infinitude of God�s love, or any mind comprehend it: it "passeth knowledge" Eph. 3:19). The most extensive ideas that a finite mind can frame about Divine love, are infinitely below its true nature. The heaven is not so far above the earth as the goodness of God is beyond the most raised conceptions which we are able to form of it. It is an ocean which swells higher than all the mountains of opposition in such as are the objects of it. It is a fountain from which flows all necessary good to all those who are interested in it (John Brine, 1743).
5. It is immutable. As with God Himself there is "no variableness, neither shadow of turning" (James 1:17), so His love knows neither change or diminution. The worm Jacob supplies a forceful example of this: "Jacob have I loved," declared Jehovah, and despite all his unbelief and waywardness, He never ceased to love him. John 13:1 furnishes another beautiful illustration. That very night one of the apostles would say, "Show us the Father"; another would deny Him with cursings; all of them would be scandalized by and forsake Him. Nevertheless "having loved His own which were in the world, He love them unto the end." The Divine love is subject to no vicissitudes. Divine love is "strong as death ... many waters cannot quench it" (Song of Sol. 8:6,7). Nothing can separate from it: Romans 8:35-39.
"His love no end nor measure knows,
No change can turn its course,
Eternally the same it flows
From one eternal source."
6. It is holy. God�s love is not regulated by caprice passion, or sentiment, but by principle. Just as His grace reigns not at the expense of it, but "through righteousness" (Rom. 5:21), so His love never conflicts with His holiness. "God is light" (1 John 1:5) is mentioned before "God is love" (1 John 4:8). God�s love is no mere amiable weakness, or effeminate softness. Scripture declares, "whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth" (Heb. 12:6). God will not wink at sin, even in His own people. His love is pure, unmixed with any maudlin sentimentality.
7. It is gracious. The love and favor of God are inseparable. This is clearly brought out in Romans 8:32-39. What that love is from which there can be no "separation," is easily perceived from the design and scope of the immediate context: it is that goodwill and grace of God which determined Him to give His Son for sinners. That love was the impulsive power of Christ�s incarnation: "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son" (John 3:16). Christ died not in order to make God love us, but because He did love His people, Calvary is the supreme demonstration of Divine love. Whenever you are tempted to doubt the love of God, Christian reader, go back to Calvary.
Here then is abundant cause for trust and patience under Divine affliction. Christ was beloved of the Father, yet He was not exempted from poverty, disgrace, and persecution. He hungered and thirsted. Thus, it was not incompatible with God�s love for Christ when He permitted men to spit upon and smite Him. Then let no Christian call into question God�s love when he is brought under painful afflictions and trials. God did not enrich Christ on earth with temporal prosperity, for "He had not where to lay His head." But He did give Him the Spirit "without measure" (John 3:34). Learn then that spiritual blessings are the principal gifts of Divine love. How blessed to know that when the world hates us ,God loves us!
