Loving Like God

Loving Like God
1 John 4:7-12
Rev. Dawn Love

'Cause I never knew love like this before; Opened my eyes;
'Cause I never knew love like this before; What a surprise

Do you remember this old school love song? Just a few verses from the song Never Knew Love Like This Before by Stephanie Mills.

The Bible tells us that love is the very essence of who God is. So, if you don’t believe that He loves you unconditionally, you’ll never really know Him or get to experience a love like this or have genuine peace about your relationship with Him. Well, how do you define “a love like this”? Well, from my perspective, it is Jesus unselfishly reaching out to mankind, giving Himself to us and bringing good into our life regardless of whether or not we accept Him.

Romans 5:8 tells us that His care and concern are so immeasurable that He laid down His life for us while we were still His enemies. In fact, the Bible says that He first began to express His love toward us before the foundation of the world. That means your actions had absolutely nothing to do with His love for you! Every single moment, whether awake or asleep, we all live under the canopy of the Lord’s wondrous, absolute love for us. But to fully experience that love, you must receive it. Say yes to this amazing gift that God wants to pour out on you. Bask in it, and let it overflow to those around you.

Jesus’ love was entirely unconditional. He did not die for those who loved Him. He died for everyone, whether they would accept Him as Savior or not. In other words, we must be LOVING LIKE GOD in the same way in laying our own will and desires aside that we might serve our brothers and sisters in love.  Now, we can choose to love or not to love. We can act upon our choice and our love will be evident to others. If our actions toward other people are positive, our love will be brought to surface. If our outward actions are negative as perceived by people, then our love will not shine forth as the love of God.

People will know our source of love by the way we treat them. When we provide or do things for them without expecting anything in return, God’s love will shine through us. His love will be evident when we feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the sick and care for the needy.

God’s love will be demonstrated by our words of encouragement; understanding; compassion; caring, and our willingness to help in their time of need. We can’t heal multitudes of people of sickness or disease, for only God can do that, but we can keep them in our prayers asking God to take care of their needs.

Some people say that love is something that makes them feel good and that may be so, but this is a feeling and not real love. This type of love is a selfish love. Scripture does not say that “love is God” but in reality, it says, “God is love”. True and real love is concerned, holy, understanding, caring, and perfect. True or real love can only be attained by knowing God and then following His Word.

John wrote: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7). We are to be LOVING LIKE GOD, and we have no excuse to do otherwise because we love God. God is our source of love, and this love was demonstrated at the Cross.

Prayer:  God, we thank you for your love.  We thank you for loving us regardless of our position in life and thank you for being the example of what love is.  God, we ask that you that you continue to show us how to be more loving like you.  We have all made mistakes. We have all done things we now regret. We haven’t always been the person you would like us to be. But thank you for still loving us and reminding us that this is the way we should feel about other people.  It is not that they love us, but instead, that we love them. Amen