"If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing...So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:2b, 13)
I have been offered the privilege of writing on this virtue which the apostle places above all others. I believe that there are two dimensions to love: there is the love between God and man, and the love men have for each other. The two are interconnected and somewhat inseparable, but this week I'd like to talk about love between God and man.
Throughout the Bible, we see on a grand scale the love God has for His creation. After all, God didn't need to create us in the first place, and yet He did, purely out of love. Repeatedly throughout the Old Testament, God revealed Himself to His people and demonstrated His willingness to form covenants with them and be their God, all out of love. His people were often, to put it plainly, jerks. But God was patient and steadfast, and did not forsake them. Sometimes they returned to worship Him with their whole hearts, and He welcomed them with open arms. More often, however, they fell away into ignorance and sin. After a while, I would have gotten extremely fed up. I probably would have said something like, "Well, you want to go your own way, do you? I've offered to help you time and time again and you don't listen. Fine. Have it your way. I've given you seventy times seven too many chances, and it won't happen again."
What did God do?
He became a man. He took on the nature of one of those creatures that repeatedly forgot Him, ignored Him, and offended Him.
Why?
So that He could adopt us and make us a part of His family through His covenant. In 1 John 3:1, it says, "See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are." We are not just called His children...we are His children. Not in name only, but truly His children. When we look at the love God has shown to human kind throughout history, we cannot but be a little awed. "We know and believe the love God has for us." (1 John 4:16a, emphasis mine)
This is the love God has for us. But what about the love we're supposed to have for God? What does that look like? Fortunately, we don't have to answer that question for ourselves: God gave us the answer. (Sacred Scripture is amazing that way.) "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." (Deuteronomy 6:4)
Now, most of us have probably heard this verse before. But what does it really mean? We truly are called to love God with our whole heart. To ever consider anything more important than God and His will is idolatry. That's an ugly word, because most of us (myself included) have at some time or another put something before God, and we don't want that called idolatry. But that's what it is. If speech and debate, or the desire to excel in school, or earning money, or spending time with friends, or being attractive to that one amazing guy, are more important to us than God, that's idolatry. None of those things are necessarily bad or evil; in fact, to lesser or greater extents, they can actually be good, but only if they do not become more important to us than God or cause us to do things that are displeasing to Him.
We've all heard that God is a jealous God. But suddenly, the other day, it struck me what that means. We know what jealousy is. It's not fun to think that the aforementioned amazing guy actually barely notices you and would rather hang out with that one thin, talented, gorgeous girl than with you. It can make a person feel very insecure and second-rate.
But when we don't give our whole hearts to God, aren't we doing the same thing? Aren't we treating God like He's second-rate? We don't like it when people treat us that way, but so many times, without realizing it, we treat God that way. God cannot be simply part of our lives; God must be our lives. The Christian life calls for nothing less than total abandonment of self to the Will of God.
I challenge you all this week to take a look at your lives. Are you living totally for God, or is there an area of your life that is captive to your own desires and plans? If there is, surrender it to God, and pray for the wisdom to know how to live the life God has blessed you with in total submission to Him. Later on down the road, you may need to do it again. Submission to the Will of God is an ongoing process. Sometimes it may seem as if nothing is getting better. But "be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain." (1 Corinthians 15:58)
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
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