Notice the words: liking, affection, devotion, passion and benevolence.
A Mother’s Love:
This is one of the best forms of human love. It begins at birth and lasts as long as
mother lives. Your mother is the first person to love you and, as long as
she is alive, the last person on earth to forsake you. Mother love is probably the
purest and most unselfish type of human love there is. Mothers love for what they
can give, not for what they can get from their children. Mother love is pure affection
and devotion. It's impossible to describe. Individuals learn to love others by receiving
love from their mothers. When a mother's love is absent, and this does happen occasionally,
a child may grow up feeling rejected and become itself emotionally stunted. Such a child may
well become incapable of loving others, simply because it has never received love from its
own mother or father.
Family Love:
This comes next, father, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents.
We love all of these in a different way. No matter how we may quarrel with the family,
we can never alter the fact that genetically we are related, and because nothing can
change that fact, families generally cling together.
Friends / Neighbors:
Our love for them is different from our love for our families. This love depends upon
shared interests, conditions, experiences, dangers or religious beliefs. These things
bring people together in friendship.
A Spouse:
The love of a man for his wife, or a wife for her husband is something totally different.
No happily married couple can properly explain marital love. It is indefinable. It manifests
itself in a thousand different ways. That is why we have tens of thousands of love stories
coming on to the market every year; each in its own way telling the wonders of love between
a man and a woman.
God loves you:
We must be taught about God's love. Taught what it is and what it is not. We must be taught that
God loves the world; and, more importantly, that He loves each of us. He loves you and He
loves us. No doubt you've heard that truth before, that ‘God loves you.’
Its been voiced so often that many people treat it as a meaningless cliché. But it is a fact,
a great truth. ‘God Loves you.’ Understanding of that fact could well be the
most important discovery of your life, that God loves you! Not likes you, but loves
you with benevolent affection.
| Romans 5: | 8: But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. |
| Ephesians 2: | 4: But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great
love wherewith he loved us, 5: Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) |
Many years ago we heard the words of a song about God's love. Here is part of it:
1.) “Could we with ink the oceans fill and were the skies
of parchment made, were every stalk on earth a quill and every man a scribe
by trade.
2.) To write the love of God above would drain the oceans dry; nor
could the scroll contain the whole were it to stretch from sky to sky!”
Pause awhile and think about that fact. Indeed, bring it to mind every day. Because it is a fact which could, if you so choose, regulate every thought, word and action of your life.
Can God hate?
We often hear Christians say that God loves the sinner; but hates
the sin. It's a beautiful thought; but alas! it's not what the Bible teaches.
Believe it or not in certain circumstances, God hates the blatant sinner!
| Malachi 1: | 1: The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi. 2: I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, 3: And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. |
| Romans 9: | 13: As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. 14: What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. |
Why did God hate Esau?
The answer is because Esau was a ‘profane person.’ Esau treated sacred
things with blasphemous irreverence and contempt. He despised the religion of his
grandfather Abraham, his father Isaac and his brother Jacob. So God began to hate Esau. We are
warned not to imitate Esau in his sins of unbelief and profanity.
| Hebrews 12: | 16: Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau,
who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. 17: For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. |
‘Love is the sacred, motivating principle which governs the Almighty God’s behavior.’ It is not a matter of likes or dislikes towards friends or enemies. Love is the leading component in Yahweh's character. Everything He does is guided by this principle. Though His love may manifest itself emotionally (i.e. in anger or joy) love is far more than the emotions it generates. Love is the holy motivating force at the heart of God!
To be sure, generosity, mercy, patience, kindness, tender-heartedness etc. are all outcomes of God's benevolence - His love. But God's love is the motivating force behind all these beautiful outcomes. That's why the Bible says that God is love! We catch a glimpse of God's love, His character, His inner mind in the following passage.
| Exodus 34: | 5: And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him (Moses)
there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. 6: And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 7: Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. |
Here we have a description of the LORD God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Love!
Notice that these ‘divine outcomes and expressions of love’ are very different from the likes, dislikes, emotions and passions we humans mistakenly call ‘love.’
Father love:
Love of friends:
| Genesis 29: | 18: And Jacob loved Rachel; and said, I will serve thee seven years
for Rachel thy younger daughter. 19: And Laban said, It is better that I give her to thee, than that I should give her to another man: abide with me. 20: And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her. |
| John 15: | 12: This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. |
Satan has attacked the word ‘love’ because it is a Biblical term that describes God's character. So great is Satan's hatred for God that anything associated with the Almighty: His Word, His commandments, His Sabbaths, His people and even the language that describes Him is attacked, vilified and twisted. As believers we need to know what the Bible means when it says: ‘God is love,’ or ‘love one another.’ Failure to understand what the Bible is telling us will result in hang-ups of self-pity. We need to understand what Jesus means when He says:
Remember that love must not be confused with feelings, likes, dislikes or emotional demonstrations. Love is a divine, motivating principle which emanates from the mind of God! Love is holy benevolence. Though love may manifest itself in mercy, kindness, honesty, generosity and patience etc. Love is not soppy sentimentality! Love is how God behaves. Love recognizes sin for what it really is. Love abhors unbelief, profanity and blatant sin; and, like God, love is the opponent of the blatant sinner! Failure to understand these things will lead to all kinds of emotional problems.
If you want love to take root and grow in your life, then keep Yahweh's commandments; begin to do what He says.
| John 14: | 15: If ye love me, keep my commandments. |
| 1 John 2: | 4: He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. |
| Leviticus 19: | 18: Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD. |
Obedience to these commands is only possible if we recognize love for what it really is: the holy benevolence of God motivating us to be like Him.
| Matthew 5: | 44: But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. |
What does this mean? How is it possible? How does one love one's enemies? What are we supposed to do or not do? Does it mean we are to ‘like’ our enemies; be emotionally attached to them; be friendly with them? No it doesn’t mean this at all. Now that we know that ‘love’ is not a matter of likes or dislikes, but rather a divine principle generating mercy, loving-kindness, goodness and truth, we can better understand the Savior's words when He said: ‘Love your enemies.’
Do you have any enemies? Perhaps not; but most of the leading characters in Scripture had enemies. The prophets, apostles, the Savior and even God Himself; they all had enemies. They didn't like their enemies. In fact they hated them. But they did love their enemies. They prayed for them, pleaded with them, admonished them, warned them of sin etc. But they didn't ‘like’ them! They weren't emotionally attached to them as with friends or family. In a similar way God loves the world; but He hates the blatant ‘workers of iniquity.’
| Psalm 5: | 3: My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my
prayer unto thee, and will look up. 4: For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee. 5: The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest ALL workers of iniquity. 6: Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man. |
| Revelation 12: | 17: “And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” |
If you wish to measure your spiritual progress in the Garden of your Soul, then look there for the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, mercy, kindness etc. If they are missing, then you know very little - if anything - about true love. Always remember that true love is a product of Yahweh’s Holy Spirit. One cannot learn about true love from books. One cannot fall into true love; or make true love. It is not an earthly product.
True love is made in heaven! Happy marriages are made in heaven. True love is extinguished by unbelief, suspicion, profanity, selfishness, greed, pride, slander, violence, infidelity and INIQUITY etc. All these will stifle and kill true love. If you want true love to flourish in your life, in your marriage and your family then beware of these smothering weeds. They will choke true love to death if left to grow unchecked. The Master warns that in the last days just prior to His return.
That time has arrived. It is here. Millions are giving up their faith in God. True love, for God, His Holy Word, His law and His Church is also vanishing from the earth. How is it with you? Have you lost your first love for God? Beware that it isn’t frozen out by sin!
