Love

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”
‭‭John‬ ‭3:16‬ ‭NLT‬‬
This is the greatest love story! God is the source of love!!!
“Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
‭‭1 John‬ ‭4:7-8‬ ‭NLT‬‬
Love, in its most holy form, is a characteristic of God Himself. Notice that the scripture says that God is love, not love is God. Love is an outflow of the holiness of God. Therefore, true, biblical love cannot be disconnected from God. When we understand His utter holiness we can properly apply love. We CANNOT separate love from all of the other characteristics of God. To do so would pervert it’s purity and purpose. Listen to how the Holy Spirit says it:
“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.”
‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭13:4-7‬ ‭NLT‬‬
“...rejoices whenever the truth wins out” (vs. 6). Real love is always rooted in truth. Truth is absolute. God is the epitome of absolute. This modern form of relativistic love is nothing more than Satan’s deceptive, hypocritical, and false counterfeit of God’s love. True love loves truly and seeks to speak truth into our lives. We cannot say we truly love anyone if we do not desire them to know, and walk in, the truth.
“No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭8:39‬ ‭NLT‬‬
Jesus is the manifestation of truth. Gods love was demonstrated to us in the Person of Jesus Christ!
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭5:8‬ ‭NASB‬‬
Listen to the conversation of the Roman procurator, Pilate, and Jesus:
“Pilate said, “So you are a king?” Jesus responded, “You say I am a king. Actually, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.” “What is truth?” Pilate asked. Then he went out again to the people and told them, “He is not guilty of any crime.”
‭‭John‬ ‭18:37-38‬ ‭NLT‬‬
Jesus directly addressed the issue of His accusers. He stated that the people said He is a king (notice the lower case k here). The people thought He was trying to be a ruling monarch. They were looking for someone to overthrow the Roman Empire and restore their Jewish heritage. They wanted a “king” that would do things their way. When He simply brought, and taught, the truth to them, the Jewish religious leaders rejected His claim of being the Messiah and they wanted him killed for blasphemy. Now they had him before Pilate, the Roman governor of the region. Pilate wanted to know what truth was. Truth was standing right in front of him! Jesus was in this world to bring truth back to it. Until truth defeated falsehood, mankind was still in darkness.
Jesus was the King (capital K). He was not “a” king. He was “the King”. His Kingdom wasn’t of this current world. In love, the King of kings and Lord of lords had come to a fallen world that was shrouded in sinful darkness. The light of truth had come to dispel the darkness.
Many people in the world today have the truth, Jesus, staring them in the face and yet they choose to walk in darkness. Jesus is the light that dispels the darkness. He, being the personification of truth, came to proclaim the love of God to man by living a perfect life, proclaiming the truth, and dying in our place. By doing this, He overcame our perversion of the truth. Sin had separated us from God and distorted our view of Him. Life is now in a perverted state. Death has come and only the Author of Life can redeem us with His holy love. The truth, Jesus, has won our redemption! Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (see John 14:6). When we know Jesus we know the way of God, the truth of God, and the life of God!!! This is true love!!
“This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.”
‭‭1 John‬ ‭4:10‬ ‭NLT‬‬
Everything else is false and will never live past the momentary life we now live. Truth endures forever! Those who know the love of God, in Christ, are loved with an everlasting love!
“Long ago the Lord said to Israel: “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.”
Are you truly born again? Being born again means you are now transformed from darkness to light, from error to truth, and from death to life. Only in a relationship with God, through Christ Jesus, can you be saved!
(see Acts 4:12 and 1 Timothy 2:5). Don’t wander in the dry desert of hate any longer. Stop going to the mirage of this worlds love. Come to the oasis of God’s Love. The Samaritan woman who came to Jacobs well in John 4 had been looking for love. She had been married five times and was now living in fornication with a man. Jesus knew she needed real love. After her encounter with the truth (Jesus) she met love for the first time. She came to the well of natural water with a bucket. There she met the spiritual well of life. She left with the well of His love. Her deepest thirst had been satisfied.
Come to the well!