Love Like God Loves
Today is Valentine’s Day. It is a day traditionally set aside for us to share our love for each other. Husbands and wives, engaged couples, dating couples, even little children, share notes and gifts to express love with each other. Love is in the air today, but true love is much more than candy and flowers.
God is love, and God loves. His love is both a state of being and an action. If we want to know how to love, the only example is God. We feel His love in the way He interacts with us. He forgives us. He heals us. He lifts us up when we fall. If we want to love others, then we should do what God does with us.
God also expresses His love for us when He allows us to sin. He loves us when He allows us to walk away from Him. He even loves us when He listens to our rage against Him, all the while never hitting back. God loves by not forcing us to love Him in return. He loves us by giving us free will.
God loves us when He speaks to us, trying to convince us to stop our sin. He loves us when He whispers in our ear that our actions are heading us in the wrong direction. He loves us when He allows us to struggle in our mistakes, so that we can learn a better way. Take a couple minutes and read today’s Epistle from Saint John. Think of it as a love note from God today.
BRETHREN, no one born of God commits sin; for God’s nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God. By this it may be seen who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not do right is not of God, nor he who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, and not be like Cain who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. Do not wonder, brethren, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Any one who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But if any one has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth. By this we shall know that we are of the truth, and reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask.
1st John 3.9-22
Think beyond chocolate hearts and roses today. Flowers wither, and candy rots. God’s love is eternal. Make today the day you begin to love as God loves, and not how the world loves. The world loves with conditions. God loves unconditionally. The world loves only when it is loved in return. God loves even when we don’t love Him in return.
Most importantly, when we love as God loves, we live as true children of God. As His children we will live with Him in His Kingdom for eternity. The alternative is to be locked out of the kingdom. No amount of chocolate will unlock the gate. Only love unlocks the gate.
