What is Love?
From The HeartPublish date: 06/29/2015
There are a lot of people, who talk about love, and about God’s love, but it is clear from what they say, that they have no idea what love really is.
God is love:
And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
1 John 4:16 NKJV
God is love – so whatever He says and does is motivated by love and manifests love.
God (love) cannot lie:
God is not a man, that He should tell or act a lie, neither the son of man, that He should feel repentance or compunction [for what He has promised]. Has He said and shall He not do it? Or has He spoken and shall He not make it good? Numbers 23:19 AMP
God cannot lie. Love will not lie to you – love will tell you the Truth even if it isn’t what you want to hear.
Love does not celebrate sin:
It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. 1 Corinthians 13:6 AMP
Love does not celebrate or rejoice over sin or injustice. God hates sin – sin will kill you. God loves you too much to leave you in your sin. Sin can only be forgiven when a person confesses it as sin and turns in repentance. 1 Peter 4:8 says that love covers a multitude of sins. This does not mean that love protects sin, but it does show forgiveness and restoration when people repent, and it does not remind them of their past.
Love will give you a spanking when you need it:
He who spares his rod [of discipline] hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines diligently and punishes him early. Proverbs 13:24 AMP
As an earthly parent, if you let your son do whatever he feels like doing, you are not showing him love – you are sending him on a path to hellfire. You show love by correcting and disciplining him here and now, so that he can learn to obey you, and to obey God, so that he can make heaven. As a spiritual leader, you warn and admonish people – you tell them the Truth – not just what they want to hear. It seems easier, initially, to just leave people to do what they want to do, without saying anything, but later you will undoubtedly have a big mess to clean up. When you make the effort to speak the Truth, in love, even when it is the unpopular thing to do, and when the hearers receive it and conform to it, there will be a positive outcome.
My child, don’t think the Lord’s discipline is worth nothing, and don’t stop trying when he corrects you. 6 The Lord disciplines everyone he loves; and he punishes everyone he accepts as a child. 7 So accept sufferings like a father’s discipline. God does these things to you like a father correcting his children. You know that all children are disciplined by their fathers. 8 So, if you never receive the discipline that every child must have, you are not true children and don’t really belong to God. 9 We have all had fathers here on earth who corrected us with discipline. And we respected them. So it is even more important that we accept discipline from the Father of our spirits. If we do this, we will have life. 10 Our fathers on earth disciplined us for a short time in the way they thought was best. But God disciplines us to help us so that we can be holy like him. 11 We don’t enjoy discipline when we get it. It is painful. But later, after we have learned our lesson from it, we will enjoy the peace that comes from doing what is right.
Hebrews 12:5-11 ERV
We all need to submit to Father God’s correction and discipline – which is His word. No one has the right to go their own way and do their own thing and then to expect God’s blessing. You can endure the discipline and be corrected and trained by it, and enjoy the harvest of the peaceable fruit of righteousness; or you can rebel and go the other way and receive the wages of your sin – which is death!
True love:
The way of love is the way of obedience and submission to Him.
By this we come to know (recognize and understand) that we love the children of God: when we love God and obey His commands (orders, charges) — [when we keep His ordinances and are mindful of His precepts and His teaching]. 3 For the [true] love of God is this: that we do His commands [keep His ordinances and are mindful of His precepts and teaching]. And these orders of His are not irksome (burdensome, oppressive, or grievous). 1 John 5:2-3 AMP
God loves every person who ever was, or will be, born into the earth. He loves them so much, that He sent His Son Jesus, to take their place and die for their sin. When each person chooses life and chooses Jesus and repents of sin and embraces righteousness – they are saved from judgment, inherit eternal life, and enter into His love. However, if they embrace sin and reject God’s commands, their judgement remains. Indeed, they continue to pile judgement upon judgment upon themselves as they continue on, deeper into their sin.
If you insist on going your own way, God will continue to love you – even all the way into hell. Just because God loves you, doesn’t mean anything to you personally, unless and until you humble yourself and walk away from your sin and toward God. Then you will truly experience His love.
And what this love consists in is this: that we live and walk in accordance with and guided by His commandments (His orders, ordinances, precepts, teaching). This is the commandment, as you have heard from the beginning, that you continue to walk in love [guided by it and following it]. 2 John 6 AMP
We show our love for God when we follow the leading of the Spirit and not the lust of our flesh. The true love of God is this: that we do His commands; that we live and walk in accordance with and guided by His commandments; that we keep His ordinances, and are mindful of His precepts and teaching.