LOVE IS A PERSON.

Love isn’t a concept. It’s not a feeling. According to the Bible, love is a person, and that person is God.

In the first epistle of John we read:

“The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1 John 4:7-9)

“God is love, and the one who abides (lives) in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (1 John 4:15-17)

As I was reading through the first epistle of John recently I realized that there’s not much debate about the topic of love. See, once you establish that God is love and then you point out that we are commanded by Jesus to love one another, and to love those who do not love us in return, there’s only one thing left to do – love others.

Debating love and analyzing love and creating a strategy for love is mostly useless. Other than actually practicing love, there’s not much else to do about it. Maybe that’s why there are so few debates about these little epistles by the Apostle John?

So, God is love. This means that love’s origin is God. Apart from God there is no love. And by “love” here we do not mean the earthly, selfish, conditional love that most of us have grown up with. No, we mean the ultimate expression of love that is expressed in the Greek language as “Agape”. It is a love that is unconditional. It is a love that is based on the character and nature of the One who is loving, not on the one who receives that love.

In the Gospel of John, penned by the same author, we read where Jesus proclaimed:

“If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” (John 14:9)

Paul places an exclamation point on that by saying:

“For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.” (Colossians 2:8-10)

That means that if God is love, then Jesus is also love.

So, to know “love” we have to get to know the person, Jesus, who is love incarnate.

It also means that if we are like Jesus, then we will be loving as He is loving. That’s why He said, “They will know that you are my disciples (followers) if you love one another.” (John 13:35)

When we obey Jesus in this area of love we declare that we belong to Him, and we also express to Jesus that we love Him in return.

Love is not an emotion. It is not a feeling. It is a person. His name is Jesus. Get to know Him.

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Learning To Be Loved

My friend Thomas Nixon once said something that I will never forget. He said that his house church family came together to discover how to love God and how to love one another. I remember nodding as he said that, not realizing that he was about to add something so intuitive and yet so unexpected to my mind at the time. He went on to say that they also came together to learn how to be loved by God, and how to be loved by one another.

The simplicity of that statement stunned me a bit. Of course, I thought, if you’re in a room full of people who are committed to loving everyone else, you’ll have to accommodate them by allowing them to actually love you. And if you’re honestly trying to learn how to love God, you’ll have to actually begin by learning how to let God love you.

The questions that began to whisper through my heart as I pondered my friend’s words were relentless. “How can I receive love from others like this?”, “What’s holding me back from receiving God’s love in my own heart?”, and most profoundly, “How could I possibly have missed such a simple truth?”

That conversation was years ago now. I’m still trying to answer those questions in my heart. If anything, those whispers have crescendoed into roars like a waterfall in my ears. “How do I learn to be loved?”

I have to admit, this is something I struggle with. Yes, I know in my mind that Jesus loves me, and I have experienced the love of God in my life many times before, but I’m learning lately that I have yet to really learn how to fully receive God’s love the way He intends for me to.

Why is it hard for me to accept God’s amazing love? I think it's partly because I struggle with pride. One of the ways I try to manage my pride is to avoid anything that is about "me" or tends to exalt my ego in any way. Somehow the idea of embracing the notion that Jesus is totally in love with me feels like a threat to my meager humility. It’s almost as if receiving His love would fill me with pride somehow. I don't know how to fully explain it, but it’s there.

At the same time, I am also constantly aware that I do not deserve His love, so to fully embrace His outrageous love for me is like denying that I am wretched, sinful, and unlovable.

So, because of my love for myself, and my hatred of myself, I am kept from fully receiving the exquisite love of God. I am boxed in on both sides by selfish pride and by awareness of my own sin. How can I receive the awesome love of a Holy God when I am too in love with myself, or too ashamed of my own unworthiness to let Him love me?

Intellectually, of course, I know all the answers for this. If I were counseling someone else I would know exactly which verses to quote, what illustrations to use to counter these ideas, but in practice, in my own heart, these do not erase the reality of my struggle.

I’ve preached sermons on this topic, I’ve memorized verses on the love of God, I know in my mind that all of these thoughts and attitudes are foolish and unnecessary, but none of that changes the fact: A large portion of my heart is still untouched by the love of God.

If you’re in the same boat with me then we are the people that Paul the Apostle is praying for in Ephesians chapter 3 when he says:

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (v. 17-19)

What Paul says is that our ability to be “rooted and established in love” can only be accomplished if we receive “power” from God to do so. God’s power must be unleashed upon us to enable us to “know this love that surpasses knowledge”.

I love that Paul uses that phrase to describe the love of God - “love that surpasses knowledge” because what he’s emphasizing to us is that the love of God isn’t accessible via language, or teaching, or intelligence, or any other form of human knowledge. How could you possibly know something that surpasses knowledge? Even if you had all the knowledge in the Universe you would still not be capable of knowing this astounding love of God. Why? Because the love of God surpasses knowledge. It cannot be found in this way. It is too large for any human brain to grasp. Only the human heart can ever hope to receive it, and only then if it is apprehended by the impulse of God’s might power working in us.

My prayer for myself, and for you as well if you find yourself in this same place, is exactly what Paul says here. I pray that we might all have power to grasp how infinitely wide and eternally high and endlessly deep is the transformational love of Christ Jesus, our Lord.

True, there may be barriers in my own heart that I know must be broken down before I can finally receive His amazing love. But, it's good to know that Jesus has His sights set on destroying these barriers. Only He can do this work in my heart. I long for Him to crash through those two strongholds of mind and heart. I can't wait for that day to come.

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LOVE BEYOND KNOWLEDGE

"For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." (Ephesians 3:14-21)

Notice how many times Paul talks about "Power" in this passage, and in what context the word is used.

What Paul is praying for the church in Ephesus is, first, that the power of God would be exerted in the hearts and lives of the followers of Jesus "so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith."

It takes God's power working in us to reveal Christ in our hearts and to empower us to have an ongoing relationship with Jesus.

Secondly, Paul prays that the power of God would lead us "to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

I love this verse because here Paul confesses a bit of his inability to express with words the incredible love of Christ for us. Notice the phrase, "to know this love that surpasses knowledge". How can we know something that is beyond knowledge? If there is a concept that "surpasses knowledge" can it really be known? Not in the natural world, but supernaturally it is possible, and only through the miraculous power of God working in us by His Spirit.

Lately I must admit I have forgotten this. I've been very busy with a lot of "Christian activity" but I've neglected to simply come to my dear Lord Jesus and sit at His feet and love Him. Not only to love Him, but to allow Him to love on me.

Re-reading this passage reminds me that what I need most is the power of Christ to be made alive in me so that I can "grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge".

Do you think it's possible for us to know something that goes beyond knowledge? Is the love of God really greater than our ability to absorb or comprehend without an upgrade to our spiritual software?

Paul seems to think so. And he spends a lot of time in his letter to the Ephesians trying to express something with words that cannot be understood through words. He struggles to communicate to us in this epistle that God's love for us is beyond comprehension, and then he prays that we might have an ability to understand it, and to receive it, and to be empowered by it in our everyday lives.

God's love transcends information. The Gospel is not about information, it's about a tranformation of the heart by our Creator who comes to live within us as we humbly submit to Him as our King.

One of the ways that we can be empowered to know the love of God that surpasses knowledge is through suffering. Paul affirmed this when he talked about his "thorn in the flesh" (2 Cor. 12:7) and said that it was given to Him by the Lord "so that Christ's power may rest on (him)" (v.9) because "(God's) power is made perfect in weakness" (v.9).

Over the last few days my family has endured a lot of suffering. In fact, at almost every level we have been under attack, and I think this is why I was able to realize last night that I had been neglecting to remember that I am called to love Jesus and cling to Him no matter what.

Today, in my weakness, I am thankful for the power of Christ at work in me. This power reminds me that I am loved and treasured beyond words and that the love of God is greater than I ever fully know with my natural mind.

"The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." (Zephaniah 3:17)

Peace,
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