Defining Love

1 John 4:8

He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

Defining Love

               How do we define love?  1 John 4:16 says, “…God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”  We know that, in and of ourselves, our love is limited and conditional, but in Christ it knows no such boundaries, ‘for while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’  The secret to loving as God has commanded us too is in the abiding in Him.  That abiding love is not static, it is dynamic in its expression toward all that surrounds it.  The eyes of that love are always looking to the real needs in each individual that it encounters.  Outwardly men say that they need a lot of things that aren’t really even relevant to the deeper need of their heart.  They might not even understand what there need is, but God does.  As we walk in the love of God, we become the expression of God by the Spirit at work in and through us.  We want to ask God to help us see each individual, from those in our own family to those who are strangers, through His eyes and His heart.  Operating and living out of the love of God is in seeing your life as a ministry and service to those around you.  Love is an open door of giving.  It is often returned with ungratefulness and abuse, but it stays open because it is the avenue of God’s love to our fellow man.  When we suffer reproach, abuse and ungratefulness from others then we are, in a sense, filling up the sufferings of Christ.  We are experiencing and feeling what He felt.  We understand the sadness and heartache for those who reject Him, while at the same time we share in the joy of those who embrace Him. 

               We have become a very self-contained society wanting our own space and our own things.  God blesses us to be a blessing.  Abiding in the love of God will often take us out of our comfort zone, as it requires that we often lay down our wants and desires so that we might meet the needs in others.  For us to intimately know God we must truly respond to the love of God and become the expression of His love to others.  If we are a closed channel, then we have effectively cut off the life to God to someone who needs it.  God says, “that is not my love.  My love extends its arms open to all who will receive Christ and come into Me.” 

               Do we really know God?  For us to really know Him means that we have to be the expression of that same love wherewith He has loved and gave His life for us.   Are we willing to give our life for others?

Ask God to give you the eyes to see the world and the individuals around you through His eyes and His love.  Then ask Him to help you to respond accordingly.  The world is starving for genuine love.  You are that love because God abides in you. 

Blessings,

#kent