Understanding Love
What is love? Often misunderstood and rarely given unconditionally, love has a way of confounding those who seek it while challenging those who want to be it. There is nothing in all of creation that is more important. For something to be so valuable, one might believe the cost would be astronomical, but the truth is that it cannot be bought or sold. Love must be freely given, or it is not truly love. There is a way to have this true love in your life. You only need to know where to find it. To receive this love, we must also be willing to freely give it away. This might sound counter intuitive, but this cycle of receiving and giving love is the foundation on which our relationship with God and with others must be laid. Without love, we are nothing. We must be willing to submit to the One who is love, so we can become love by being one spirit with Him.
A couple of years ago, someone challenged my understanding of love. I thought I knew what love was, but to make sure I fully understood it, I decided to “pursue love” as Paul instructed us to do in 1 Corinthians 14:1. I made it the center piece of my relationship with God and with everyone that God placed in my life. Over the past two years, the Holy Spirit has been teaching me the meaning of love, and why it is so important for a follower of Christ to not only understand it but to become it. He has been showing me how to become love by allowing the Father to do His work in me.
To understand love, we must first understand its origin. 1 John 4:7-8 says, “Beloved, let’s love one another; for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” If we want to have love in us, we must have the Spirit of God in us. If we want to experience love, we must belong to the One who is love. Romans 8:9 says, “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” To belong to God, we must have Him living in us, and in this way, we will know and experience love.
Jesus told His disciples in John 13:35, “By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another.” Jesus was not telling them that people would know they were His disciples simply because they followed His teachings. He was telling them that people would know they were His disciples because they would see Jesus in them. God is love, and they would see God in them. We must also have God living in us for the world to see we are His disciples. What must we do to have the Spirit of Christ in us?
Jesus said in John 14:23, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him.” If we love God, we will obey Him, and He will live in us. Obedience is key to understanding the mysteries of love. It is vital in receiving the gift of salvation, which is simply God’s love manifested in His creation. John 3:36 says, “The one who believes in the Son has eternal life; but the one who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” To understand love, we must listen to the words of Jesus and obey them. Jesus said in John 10:27, “My sheep listen to My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” If we belong to God, we will have the Spirit of Christ living in us, we will listen to His voice, He will know us, we will obey Him, and we will become one spirit with Him.
1 Corinthians 6:19 says, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own.” When we decide to love God and to receive His love, we become His and are no longer our own. We become a temple for the Spirit of Christ. 1 Corinthians 6:17 says, “But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.” Being “one spirit” with Christ means there is no longer any separation between us. We are love as He is love. This is a grace or gift from God to those who love Him, who obey Him, and who have the Spirit of Christ living in them.
We cannot be love like God is love without having the Spirit of God living in us because it is the Father’s love that works in us, not our own. Jesus said in John 14:10, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.” The Father does His works in us if we allow Him. Our willingness to submit to Him is how we love Him freely. It is His love living through us that allows us to love others. It is the foundation upon which we build our relationship with God. Love is the very essence of God.
Love is defined most clearly in 1 Corinthians 13. Paul digs deep into the meaning of love as he explains the importance of it as it relates to our relationship with God and with others. He says in verses 4-8, “Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” These are words of action. Love is more than a feeling; it is an act of obedience to God’s word.
Jesus loved the Father. His love for the Father was evident by His obedience to Him and in His service to others. We must love the Father in the same way. We must be patient when we are waiting on Him. We must be humble when are speaking to Him. We must not hold unforgiveness towards Him when we do not get our own way because that is not love. These actions are how we are to love God, but also how to love each other. In Matthew 10:7-8, Jesus sent His disciples out to share His gospel of love, and He told them, “Freely you received, freely give.” He was speaking of His love. 1 Corinthians 13 are also the words of Jesus being written by His servant Paul. If we do not obey these words, we cannot say we love God. If we do not freely love others, how are we to expect to receive God’s love?
Paul digs deeper and claims that without love, we are nothing. He explains that love surpasses even faith and hope when it comes to its importance in our lives. In 1 Corinthians 13:13, he says, “But now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” The reason love is greater is because it is the result of faith and hope. We can have faith and hope without love, but if we have love, we also have faith and hope. As it says in 1 John 4:7, “everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” Those who love God know God because God lives in them, and God knows them because they listen to His voice and obey in love.
The importance of knowing God and loving God becomes painfully evident in the words spoken by Jesus in Matthew 7:21-23. He said, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; leave me, you who practice lawlessness.” He did not know them because they did not know love. They had faith enough to move mountains, as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:2, but they did not have love, so they were nothing. They did not have the Spirit of Christ living in them because they did not obey Him but instead practiced lawlessness. They believed in Jesus, and the power of His words, but they did not know Him. They did not know love, so He did not know them.
Jesus said His sheep would love Him, listen to His voice, and obey His words. He said He would know them, and He and the Father would live in them and reveal Themselves to them. The scripture says if we do not have the Spirit of Christ living in us, we do not belong to Him. If we do not belong to Him, He will not know us. We become one spirit with God when we choose to freely receive and freely give His love back to Him and to others. To understand love is to understand God because God is love. We are only capable of understanding love to the extent that we are walking in obedience to Christ while being filled with the Spirit of Christ, God in us.
You can read more about this and other truths by obtaining a copy of “Prodigal to Prince” by Beau Walsh at BarnesandNoble.com or Amazon.com.
