Digging Deeper – What is Love?
Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.
Colossians 3:12-14 (NLT)
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1 John 4:7-10 (NLT)
WHAT IS LOVE?
What is love? This seems like a straightforward question. I mean, we all know what love is, right? I love my wife, I love my job, I love my neighbor, and I love… pizza? We throw around the word love a lot. But what do we mean by love? Pizza isn’t a genuine rival for my affection for my wife. That would be weird. I know what I mean by love in those examples, but if you didn’t know my definition, you might not understand who I am. You need to know what I mean when I say love, and if we want to understand the scriptures above, we need to know what they mean by love.
God wants us to love like he does. In 1 John, we read that God is love. It’s not that He is good at loving or even the best at loving, but he IS love; it’s part of Him. So we can learn to love from Him. The prime example of God’s love is Jesus dying for us.
The verse from Colossians tells us to “clothe ourselves” in love. What we wear is a choice we make, just like the kind of selfless love that Scripture suggests we have toward others. In the same way, earlier in the verse, it tells us that God chose us to be his holy people whom He loves. He loves us, not because we are worthy of love, but because He chooses to love us. Then He calls us to love others similarly, not because they are worthy, but because we choose to love like God.
Take a few minutes to pray and ask God to show you the people today who need to see the love of God through you.
Chris Boggess is the Next Generation/Family Pastor at NorthStar Church. He grew up in St. Albans, West Virginia, and still cheers for the Mountaineers. He and his wife, Heather, have two grown children and one granddaughter.