What God Says About Love
The ringing in my ears from the recent strikes to the head was deafening. I could feel the breath of my lifelong abuser on my face, “You are worthless! You disgust me! I hate you!” The tune would change depending on their mood or circumstance. Soon, I would be told how much I was loved. “Look at how beautiful you are! You’re my favorite person. I love you so much!” However, only one thing was certain as a child: love was conditional and contingent upon changing emotions. It never lasted.
My early years were spent in poverty, surrounded by people bound to less-than-favorable circumstances. It was the land of welfare checks and broken families, the land of single working mothers and absentee fathers. It was teeming with children born with a clear view of the different joints, seams, and sharp angles of the underbelly, the place where depravity was always overtly on display. These were my people. I was one of them.
But one day, against all odds, in the basement of a little old Baptist church the summer before sixth grade, this girl with nothing to offer and very little self-worth heard about a God who sent His only begotten Son (begotten marking the uniqueness, distinctness, and deity of Jesus). I learned that the consequences of the human condition (sin) had a remedy. Not one that was fickle or fake (like the “glory dust” a preacher tried to blow in my face as he pushed on my forehead while trying to make me succumb to “the spirit.”). No. This was different. This was something I had never encountered before. I learned about the kind of love that freely lays down its own life. Love made itself known to me that day. And I have been scouring the pages of Scripture ever since to learn about His character and what He has to say (spoiler alert: it’s a lot, but we will focus on the love part).
Many are familiar with John 3:16 (if you don’t know the words of the verse, you have at least seen it on helmets, jerseys, or in the crowd at stadiums). This verse was shared with me the day I encountered Jesus. It states, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” While it can be easy to gloss over this verse for those who have heard it repeatedly, it’s nice to stop and take inventory here. This verse highlights God’s love for mankind and reiterates the heart of the Bible. It is the hub, so to speak.
Buckle up. We are about to get nerdy.
How, then, can we know the extent of the Father’s love? We can know it by the cost of the gift. The construction of the sentence in Greek has the emphasis on ‘God loved so that He gave.’ What did He give? He gave His only Son. Not only did He give Him, but He sent Him in the likeness of sinful man (though He never sinned). His love for the world (not confined to one people group or the spiritual elite, but all people) provided a way so that no one had to perish and could be the recipient of eternal life. We see here the evidence of God’s love. He didn’t just tell the world it was loved but showed it.
So, what does this mean for us? The love demonstrated to us is a costly love given to a sinful and undeserving people (that’s a hard pill to swallow, but it is the truth). His actions are saying that love is not superficially motivated or this fluffy, experiential, and emotional love you see in romcoms. It is the kind of love that will cost you.
Later in the New Testament, there is a less popular verse. It is 1 John 3:16. It says, “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” Maybe you are sitting there thinking to yourself, “Yeah, yeah, I know this.” Or, you are sitting there thinking, “What does this even mean?” Put your nerd cap back on for a minute with me. Let’s break it down.
In John 3:16, we learned that man (even in a sinful state) was so precious to God that He gave the ultimate gift of His dear Son. We see the value He places on us by the quality of what He gave (measured by the sacrifice that the Son paid). 1 John 3:16 tells us that Jesus gave the “greatest possible sacrifice that did the greatest possible good” for those who believe. And this is where action on our end comes in. We are to do the same. Are we being asked to lay down our physical lives for our brother? Well, the “ought” in this verse implies a moral obligation to show our love at all costs (even if this means we could risk losing…). To lay down your life, there is a type of surrender that happens. It is the type of surrender that yields results that enable us to love with action. It is laying down your life in such a way that makes room to love the way God says to love.
What does God say about love? First, He demonstrated. Then, He says in His Word: it is patient and kind. Not prone to jealousy, bragging, or arrogance. It is not rude, unbecoming, or self-seeking. It doesn’t keep an account of past wrongs. It does not rejoice in unrighteousness but with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, and never, ever fails or falls into ruin (all outlined in 1 Corinthians 13). How can we be sure it never fails? Because it is an attribute of God (1 John 4:8, 16).
As a little girl, I learned that awful events happen in our lives that our minds can’t reconcile, leaving countless frayed ends within our hearts that cannot make amends with our heads. Yet, despite our sin and folly, Jesus entered in and turned human logic upside down. The love we are called to is costly, but it is nothing compared to the price He paid for His people on the cross.
What steps can you take in your life to love with the kind of self-sacrificial love Scripture calls us to?
Written by: Mandy Oliver
Published by Woodside Bible Church, www.woodsidebible.org
