GOD’S LOVE AND OURS
LIBERTY AND LOVE #96
The love of God toward man is the theme of the Bible. The most well known verse in the whole book speaks of God sending his Son into the world because he “so loved” it (John 3:16). Page after page of the Bible is given to the holy and divine love of God toward man. The Bible is not a book about man seeking God; it is the story of God seeking man.
Love is listed by Paul as part of the “fruit” that is produced by the Holy Spirit in our hearts (Gal. 5:22). The love that Paul speaks of is the love that we are to exhibit to God and to our fellow man—especially our fellow believers in Christ—in response to the great love God has shown. God moved first. We love him because he loved us first (1 John 4:19). But God has always required a response of love on the part of man if man would be pleasing to him.
“But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the LORD charged you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul” (Jos. 22:5). God made it clear to Israel that they would have to love him to remain in a right relationship with him and continue to receive his blessings (Deut. 11:1).
When Jesus was questioned about the greatest commandment in the law, he answered in a very unsurprising way: “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matt. 22:37-39).
No matter what we try to bring to the table in our dealings with God, there is nothing that is as important as a heart of love for him. Love leads to other things, to be sure, but everything that we do must be motivated by a desire to serve God because of who he is. No amount of Christian service in the world will replace the need for genuine love for God. “And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices” (Mk. 12:33).
Since we are by nature a selfish rather than a God-honoring people, how do we expect to manifest and maintain a life of love for someone other than ourselves? Love for God comes from God. It is the “fruit of the Spirit," meaning that it is only by the power of God that we can live the kind of life that he deserves and demands. “We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Other people are not always easy to love. But the Bible teaches that if we are truly the people of God, then we will manifest love to others (1 John 5:1-3).
To love others is to love God. It is to obey God. It is to honor him with our lives. And it is good indeed to know that love is the product of God’s power in our lives. The love of God is “poured” out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5). We are not called to love with agape love by our own strength. With this, as with everything else that Christians are to do, we can depend upon the power of God.
God’s blessings are promised to those who love him and serve him with their whole hearts (Deut. 30:20). We may be certain that God recognizes and rewards those who love Him. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). There are only two kinds of people in the world from God’s perspective—those who love him and those who do not. “The LORD preserves all them that love him: but all the wicked will he destroy” (Psa. 145:20).
Dewayne Dunaway
