God’s Perfect Love For Us
by Larry Purvis
In our culture, love is a word that is usually associated with a soft and fuzzy feeling. It's a word that, for many, provokes a sort of sentimentality. Ask around, and you might get the impression that love has to do with how someone makes you feel or how you make them feel.
For example, to be loving for many today means being affirming and non-confrontational about others’ lifestyles. It means putting “feelings” ahead of the truth and lying at the expense of being a faithful friend. The result is that the person “feels” good. This is how our culture defines love – feelings; nothing more, nothing less.
But true love is about so much more than that.
The Bible often speaks of love in active terms. Love is seen more as a verb than a noun, an action we carry out rather than mere emotion.
True love is a selfless and unconditional commitment expressed through action on behalf and for the benefit of another individual, regardless of one's feelings and despite what the person has done. It gives of itself without expectation of a return and concern for the merit of its object.
This brings to mind the tragedy that happened last year in Mesquite, Texas, where a 21-year veteran of a police department was shot and killed in cold blood outside of a grocery store. During his memorial service, his eldest daughter shared her feelings about the man who killed her father.
In her eulogy for her father, she acknowledged feeling anger, grief, sadness, and confusion but pointed out that she couldn't bring herself to hate the man who had done this to her father. If her speech had ended there, that alone would be loving. But she continued, expressing her heart's desire to sit down one day with the man who killed her father, not to scream at him, not to yell at him, but tell him about Jesus.
That's love! And that’s the kind of love that God poured out on us! Think about it. The fact that God knows everything about us and still desires to be in a relationship with us should cause us to rejoice. We were once children of wrath, but now we are children of God. God doesn't just pardon His enemies and send them on their way. No, He lovingly welcomes them into His family and graciously gives them a seat at His table. He loves His enemies, and He delights in making them friends.
Now, the Bible uses various Greek terms to describe love depending on the context. These words can sometimes denote affection, friendship, or even intimate love, but there is also an entirely separate term used to express the love that God gives to us. The Greek word for this is agape, a term that refers to a benevolent and charitable love that always strives for the best for the other person.
However, it's important to note that the definition of love isn't about you or me. It's about God, and it's not about what we feel to be our best interests or what our neighbor feels to be their best interests, but what God declares to be our best interests.
God defines love, not us. And love is a fundamental part of His being and character.
John Piper puts it this way, “Love is from God the way heat is from fire, or the way light is from the sun. Love belongs to God’s nature. It’s woven into what He is. It’s part of what it means to be God. The sun gives light because it is light. And fire gives heat because it is heat.”
In other words, love is from God because God is love. This is an encouraging and reassuring truth because if God is love, we can be sure that everything He does is loving.
Can I be honest with you for a moment? Sometimes, it's easier for me to believe that God is love and that He loves others than to believe that He really loves me.
Whenever I mess up, I tend to think that God couldn't possibly love me.
Instead of believing in who God is and what He's done for me - Instead of seeing that in Christ I'm already accepted, forgiven, and loved - I try to earn my way back into His good graces, but that’s where I go wrong.
God's ability to love me does not depend on me. It's not my actions, intentions, or merits that move Him to love me. He loves me and you simply because He is love, and here's the proof: He sent His Son for us!
Jesus reminds us that no greater love has a man than this that he lay down his life for his friends. For us, Jesus lived the perfect life; He loved God with His whole heart, soul, and mind and loved His neighbor as Himself. He never failed in His observance of God's law, even to the point of death. And on the cross, He took the punishment our sin deserved – dying our death, and on the third day, He rose from the grave, proving that His love for us is stronger than sin, death, and Satan.
When you and I believe this, we’ll recognize that we don’t have to work for His love. We’ll recognize that we are ACTUALLY loved and that in Christ, nothing can ever change that, even when it doesn’t feel that way.