Songs: All you need is Love, Whole lotta Love, Can’t help falling in Love. Crazy little thing called Love, Baby Love, Can’t buy me Love.
Movies: From Russia with Love, Crazy stupid Love, Love Story. Love me tender, The Love bug, Love is a many splendored thing.
TV shows: The Love Boat, Love American style, Joanie Loves Chatchie. Everybody Loves Raymond, the Love connection, I Love Lucy.
I’m guessing by now you can pick the commonality. Yep, love. Of all the themes in God’s Word, our world has picked up and embraced love more than any other. Our world, our society, our planet, all people, well, just love to be loved. We love to be loved and we love to love. It’s a gift that God gives to all people, a miraculous gift from Him that allows us a glimpse of His mystery. You cannot touch love, but you can feel it. You cannot see love, but you know it is there. You cannot buy love, but it is priceless to the holder. Love, like God, can be quite the conundrum to define and explain. Like God, you cannot see love or touch it, yet there it is changing lives and changing the world one heart at a time.
When you think of the origins of love you do not have to go farther than God. God invented love and the first love to exist was a beautiful love that our Heavenly Father displayed when He created us. You see, God didn’t create man and woman just because He was bored. He wasn’t just sitting up in Heaven playing Sudoku and then said, you know what, I’ll make man today. You see God is love and in His endless love He made each and every person on this planet in His image and He blesses them. (Gen 1:28) But as we experience the abundant love and blessings of God daily, how should we respond? How can you possibly answer the love of God?
To get a better angle on this question, think about how you respond to the ones that love you deeply in your life. As Margie gives me her heart and her love, how do I respond? First, I respond with my love in return. You see, love is responsive and reciprocal. When you are loved deeply, you in turn are spurred to return that love in a similar fashion. We respond to love with a host of traits that flow from how God designed love. My deep love for Margie will naturally produce a host of love based characteristics. I will honor and respect Margie. My love for her will also forge honesty, loyalty, kindness, forgiveness, patience and even one that can sometimes easily get lost and misconstrued in our modern day interpretation of love….obedience.
Now let’s work those ideas and traits of love back around to God. Some will ask why they should love God in these ways. Well, it goes back to the reciprocal nature of love, we desire to love because we are first loved.
“We love, because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19
You see we are born with a deep love for God. As soon as we take our first breath we are made aware of His abundant love for us and we encounter the innate need to return that love to Him. We love God because He first loved us. And in an ironic twist that truly shows the depth of God’s love for us, He sent His only Son here to die for us as sinners. He loved us in spite of our true rebellious nature against Him. You see even at 1 hour old, we are sinners. As you walk by that maternity ward next time and see all of those new adorable, gooing infants, God see sinners. But in His endless and boundless love, He still loved us deeply enough to sacrifice His Son to offer us eternal life with Him instead of the death our sin deserves.
“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
Now folks, I love my Margie with all of my heart, being and ability, but I can never love like God loves us. If the love scale goes to 10, we can only as humans love at a maximum of 6.1 while God’s love goes to 11. God’s love for us is a miracle in itself that should bring us to our knees in thanksgiving every day we take a breath.
So back to our original question, how do you answer the love of God? How can you possibly respond to this kind of love? Well, you simply give back love to God in the ways that God built us to show love. You honor and respect God in love. Revering and fearing His awesome power and provision in your life. You are honest with God, confessing your sins against Him in order to keep the love relationship healthy. You are lovingly patient with God’s plan for your life. You, out of love, will wait patiently on the Lord to reveal His plan to you instead of like sheep, going astray to find your own way. (Isa. 53:6) Out of great love for the Lord you will be loyal to Him. You will have no other gods before Him, placing Him first in your life in all you do. You will not idolize or put money, yourself, work, family, sexual immorality or material things in the place of the Lord. And folks, one that sits at the very top…you will out of your love for Jesus, be obedient to Him in all you do.
Our study passage in Deuteronomy 7 touches on just this today. (it’s almost like this was planned…) Man’s answer to the love of God is obedience to His Word.
“Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and obey his commandments, to a thousand generations” Deut 7:9
To truly reciprocate God’s love is to be obedient to His commands. You see, God is not some cosmic killjoy that only wants to harsh our good time down here on this planet. Just as an earthly parent has seen life and is able to guide their children in the way they should go, God has witnessed countless lives and He is fully aware of the pain, hardship and turmoil that we can so easily cause oursleves. As a response to this, He has created rules for your life that will help you to avoid the pitfalls of a dark, evil, sin filled world. You see satan does not desire you to be obedient to God. To deter you from walking closely with God in love, he has put up great temptations that will appeal to the sin nature you have living within you today. But resist the devil and he will flee from you. (James 4:7) Obey the law of God, be obedient to His Words and folks, as a result of your love for the Lord, you will find the abundant life that the world so desperately seeks for.
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” John 10:10
Love the Lord Jesus today like you’ve never loved Him before. Make today a new day with a new love. Study God’s Word, let it reside in your heart and be obedient to what it says. In those three simple steps lies a life full of God’s goodness, peace, freedom and joy.
“Jesus replied, ‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.'” John 14:23
He who has My commandments and obeys them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” John 14:21
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