7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 1John 4:7-12,16,17
The definition of love that I usually go with is "a commitment of my will to your needs and best interests regardless of the cost." This is the selfless love that the Bible is usually talking about when it's talking about God's love or Agape love. This is the love that He has shown to us by sending His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins, and this is the love that He has put inside of us in the Holy Spirit to demonstrate and give to the world through our lives. It should shine a light in this dark world because the only love this world can give is self-centered love or acts that look loving but are done for the benefit of self.
I had to laugh as I network surfed last night and the network 30 second intro to a show on Netflix was a clip where Lexi, in a bikini on a boat in a reality dating show, says "I'm looking for a man who is confident enough to let me be me and yet is obsessed with me." That was the type of man she could love. How many times did she say "me" in that clip? This is the world's love not God's love, and yet God gets hated on by the world for being unloving mainly for two reasons. First is Hell - why would a God of love send people to Hell? Second is pain and suffering - if God is all powerful and loving, why doesn't He just stop all the pain and suffering?
First is hell. Hell is at the very least absence from the presence of God. The fact that it is such a terrible place shows that the presence of God in this world is the very reason we have anything good and we don't give thanks to God for it but presume on His common grace and goodness. The fact that He gives people free will to choose to honor and worship Him and thank Him for it verses choosing not to want Him in their lives yet enjoying all the good things He gives is an act of love by God. Allowing them then also to head into the afterlife apart from Him is honoring their choice not to want Him in their lives.
Second is somewhat like the first. The very fact that we have such a word as "tragedy" or "natural disaster" in our dictionaries is a testament to the fact that we have so much good in our lives that we are surprised by suffering. Where does that good come from? It comes from a God who loves us so much that even in a fallen, broken world which was created to be a garden of Eden without pain, suffering, or death, He recreated the world with a flood and gave us what we see today - broken but beautiful. The fact that there is cancer, disease, starvation, abductions, war is that He has given man free will and man is evil and there are consequences to that evil. The fact that there is cancer, birth defects, crippling diseases and pain is unfortunately the result of living in a broken world with broken bodies. Why doesn't He fix the brokenness? He will someday but now He loves mankind so much that He endures our grief and pain with tears allowing mankind free will to reject or choose Him. Someday soon, that choice will be over and He will make all things new.
On that day, those who chose to love Him and received the Holy Spirit evidenced by their selfless love to mankind, will confidently, without fear, step into judgement and hear, "Well done my good and faithful servant. Enter into the place I've prepared for you." Maranatha, the Lord come quickly!
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