Welcome to our brand new blog series called ‘LOVE’. Over the next four weeks, we are going to take a look at how we love; Others, Our Communities and Ourselves.
However, in order to be able to truly love others/communities/ourselves well, we first have to turn our attention to Loving God.
The world has a very messed up view of LOVE, we see quotes and slogans such as:
‘When you love yourself, you will see how much you deserve love, and you will get it.’
‘How you love yourself, is how you teach others how to love you.’
‘The purpose of our lives is to be happy.’
‘Love is Love.’
‘You have your own life, why waste it focusing on others.’
This is what the world is teaching us about LOVE – it’s all about putting yourself first, it’s all about what feels good and what makes you feel good, and there is nothing wrong with putting conditions on love, i.e. I will give you love if you do this or get me this..
And the list goes on… Love in the world is all defined by feelings, and more times than not it’s about making sure you
“feel” loved.
Where does love come from? The short and very quick answer to this is God! That’s because God
is LOVE.
1 John 4:19
“We love because he first loved us.”
We can only understand what love is and understand our capacity, as humans, to love because God is not only the very definition but also the ultimate source of love!
If you read through the Bible – from cover to cover – what you will find is absolute greatest love story ever told, because the Bible is God’s love story, to us and for us!
Let’s go back to the very beginning where love began. In Genesis, we see the story of creation when God created the heavens and the earth, the stars, the sun, the moon and skies and seas and land all living creatures … and He said everything was Good.
Then God created man, Genesis 1:26-31
“26 Then God said, “Let us make human beings[b] in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth,[c] and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” 27 So God created human beings[d] in his own image. In the image of God, he created them; male and female he created them. 28 Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.” 29 Then God said, “Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. 30 And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—everything that has life.” And that is what happened.31 Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good! And evening passed and morning came, marking the sixth day.”
Then in Genesis chapter 2 God goes a step further with us as verse 18 tells us “Then the Lord said, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper just right for him.”
This is love
- God loves us so much – that He created us all in His image.
- God loves us so much – that He gave us responsibility to take care of everything he created.
- God loves us so much – that He created us in the first place, to be in a relationship with Him.
But, we know what happens, by Genesis 3 OUR love for God became broken. Adam and Eve gave in to temptation and ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and “Love” from the world view arrived! Blame, shame, selfishness takes place between Adam and Eve and separation from the love of God happens.
This continues through the entire Old Testament, through the New Testament, all the way through history right up to today, our love for God is broken, our world is broken.
Think about how you feel when you love someone and they don’t love you in return! That is hard, can you imagine how God felt and feels everyday being rejected by us.
However, God still choses to love us and responds with the single greatest example of love the world has ever seen! He sent His son Jesus, to live among us, show us how to love, and then die and rise again … all because of His love for us!
We need to remember that in this world, there is no relationship, no gift, not anything you can feel or experience that can ever come anywhere near close to the love God has for you. All God asks of us, is to love Him in return. That looks like recognising how much God loves you, asking God into your heart, choosing to follow Him and have a relationship with Him every day.