WHAT IS TRUE LOVE?
By Glenda Ward
McDowell County
Love comes from God. God is truth, God is light, God is Love, and God is life. In our dark world, God is light. In our cold world, God brings the warmth of love. In our dying world, God brings life. When we lack confidence, these truths bring us certainty. Christ commands us to love others as He loved us. This love is evidence that we are truly saved. God is the Creator of love; He cares that His children love each other. We become God’s children by believing in Christ. God’s life in us enables us to love our fellow family members. Love is the most essential virtue of Christian life. The first and greatest commandment is that we are to love the Lord our God with all our strength, heart, mind, and soul. Scripture tells us that by our love for one another men will know that we are His disciples. True love is a genuine desire for the well-being of another. True love that brings glory to God is the very purpose of life and the existence of the Church. God is truth and light, so the more we get to know Him, the better we can keep focused on the truth.
“God is love” (v. 8, 16), not love is God. Our world today with its shallow and selfish view of love, has turned these words around and contaminated people’s understanding of love. Love is God’s supreme quality. God can be known only by those who live in love. However, we could not know how to love, nor would we be able to love Him if He had not “first loved us” (v. 19). If we love one another, God abides in us, and “His love is perfected” (v. 12, 17) and matured in our life. “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him” (v. 16). This is how love is made complete so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples. If ye have love one to another” (John 13:35).
Love is important, but we usually think of love as a feeling. In reality, love is a choice and an action. In chapter 13 Paul defines love as (“charity”). Love is more important than all the spiritual gifts exercised in the church body. Great faith, acts of dedication or sacrifice, and miracle-working power produce very little without love. Love makes our actions and gifts useful and God is the source of that love (Reference 1 Corinthians 13:4-7). God’s kind of love is directed outward toward others, not inward toward our natural desires. It is possible only if God helps us set aside our own desires so that we can give love while expecting nothing in return. Jesus is our example of what it means to love. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to love; He lives in our hearts and makes us more and more like Jesus. God’s love always involves a choice and an action. “… The Lord our God is one Lord and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:” (Deuteronomy 6:4-6).
Today many people prefer to place their trust in many different values, belief systems, and gods. But the day is coming when God will be recognized as the only True God. The passage in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 sets a pattern that helps us relate the Word of God to our daily lives. We are to think constantly about His commandments, teach, and live our daily lives by the guidelines in His Word. Eternal truths are most effectively learned in the loving environment of a God-fearing home. Jesus talked more about these laws in (Matthew 19: 16-22 and Mark 10:17-22).
Love explains (1) why God creates – because He loves, He creates people to love; (2) why God cares – because He loves them, He cares for sinful people; (3) why we are free to choose – He wants a loving response from us; (4) why Christ died – His love for us caused Him to seek a solution to the problem of sin; and (5) why we receive eternal life – His love expresses itself to us forever.
God is “life” (Reference 1 John 5: 1-21). God’s life is in His Son. To know His Son and have His Son in your heart and life is to have eternal life. The book of 1 John will help you know the reality of God in your life through faith in Christ, and to assure you that you have eternal life with the God who is light and love. Take it to heart, God Loves You!
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Glenda Ward is a member of Grand View Baptist Church in McDowell County and is a Christian writer/author of “Something to Think About” – weekly Christian Articles. She finds purpose and joy in writing Church Programs & Bulletins, VBS Material, Christmas and Easter Programs, Memorials, and now expanding to include weekly articles to other churches, as well as writings to include Christian-based articles on Relationships in Marriage; all material based on the KJV of the Bible. From personal experience, I hope to set an example of how to serve a risen Savior and live by the Holy Spirit with joy. My goal is to help people partake of the better option in life to experience the transforming power that is available in Christ Jesus today. You can read more, good, Christian news from Glenda HERE.
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