I could paint with a broad stroke and speak of His love for  all humanity. I could talk about the affection of God as it relates to the Church. Those aspects of God’s love form an important framework, but what we all long to know – or perhaps to know increasingly -is the love of God for each of us individually.

And lest you think that is selfish, let me assure you that that is precisely what God wants for you! God has moved from the beginning of time to insure that any who wanted, could have a very personal relationship with Him and receive the affections of His heart.

As a child, when I first committed my life to God through Christ, I was looking to escape judgment. I came to the foot of the cross in fear. I was motivated more by the fear of God than the love of God. Yet the longer I walk with God, the more my understanding of Him becomes relational. The more I have come to know Him, the more I understand that our relationship is anchored in love and the less I am motivated in immature ways by my fear of God.

As the disciples of Jesus grew in their understanding of God, Jesus challenged their thinking. “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing; but I call you friends…” John 15:15 Jesus gave us picture of a friendship that flows from love in John 15:13. “Greater love has no one than this, than one lay down his life for his friends.” On the cross, Jesus became a literal offering for us, laying down his life so that we could be personally related to God. He took care of everything that could separate us from God. This sacrificial unconditional giving is at the heart of understanding the love of God. Truly, no one loves us like God loves us.

The Love of God Motive

Although fear can bring us to God, God wants us to move so far beyond that! He passionately desires that we know His love.

If I am afraid of you, I won’t feel safe in your presence. I won’t be able to share my heart with you freely. It is the same with God. Yes, we are to reverence Him but when our obedience and worship flow from a place of love instead of a place of fear, we are free to truly offer all we are to God. The safety we find in this unconditional love of God transforms our hearts, purifies our motives of service.

1 John 4: 17-19 tells us that the love of God will bring us to completion, maturity, and we will be able to be confident in the day of judgment. There is NO fear in love; but perfect, mature love casts out fear. Fear involves torment and judgment. Understanding God’s love will remove fear from our hearts as we are made mature in His love. The reason we love Him is because He loved us first! His unending passionate and patient compassion for us is amazing.

Relating from the Love of God

I’ve heard it said that fear and love are opposites and that they are the two primary emotions from which all other emotions flow. If we can operate from that thought for a moment and evaluate your relationship with God in terms of how much you relate to God from a basis of love or how much you relate to God through fear, where would you find yourself on such a continuum?

LOVE——————————————————————- FEAR

Of course, our relationships aren’t linear but using this illustration as a point of examination, can you ask yourself the following?

Do I understand my relationship with God more from a view of His love or my fear of Him?
Do I approach God intimately or through a system of rules?
Do I know more of God’s love than I did a year ago, two years ago, ten years ago?
Do I feel secure in God’s love for me or am I afraid He is just waiting to judge me?

I think of the words from an old hymn, The Love of God, that Lehman wrote in 1917:

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

Oh, love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure—
The saints’ and angels’ song.

The love of God! It frees us from fear and leads us into deeper levels of intimacy with God. May we all live experientially in the love of God today and in all the days to come.

    When Jesus summarized the two most important things about a believer’s life, he said 1) love God, and 2) love others. It all comes down to love so today I end these devotionals with this section of Scripture from 1 Corinthians 13. Read it prayerfully, slowly, listening and being sensitive for any way the Holy Spirit wants to speak to you.

    Even if I can speak in all the tongues of earth—and those of the angels, too—but do not have love, I am just a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal.

    If I have the gift of prophesy such that I can comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge, or if I have faith great enough to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

    If I give away everything I own to feed those poorer than I, then hand over my body to be burned, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

    Love is patient; love is kind.  Love is not jealous, it does not put on airs, and it is not snobbish; it is never rude or self-seeking; it is not prone to anger, nor does it brood over injuries.  Love doesn’t rejoice in what is wrong, but rejoices in the truth.  There is no limit to love’s forbearance, to its trust, its hope, its power to endure.

    ~ I Corinthians 13:1-7
 

Knowing the love of God has changed my life more times than one. For me, the knowledge of God’s love has come bit by bit, piece by piece. When I committed my life to Christ as a very young girl, I distinctly remember wanting to avoid hell. And of course that is important.  But my journey to knowing the love of God has been a life-long one. In my early twenties, I was overtaken by the love of God when I first knew that God had called me into ministry. I was so overwhelmed by the fact that God wanted me.  I became consumed with knowing Him. I read the Word for hours and hours.  However, in a few short years, I became drained by religion. I had somehow equated knowing God with keeping a list of rules (i.e., read five chapters of Psalms every day, 1 chapter of Proverbs, and part of the New Testament; keep a prayer journal which covered all the needs of the world and everyone else I knew, etc.) Now the rules represent important principles but living for the rules replaced living for God and I found myself hopeless. You can be sure that God doesn’t lead us into hopelessness.

Another season of encountering religious rules in my late 30’s almost took my spiritual life. And through the pain of these encounters, I increasingly learned the difference between religion and relationship. But I confess, I am very much still on that journey.

Encountering the Holy Spirit in a dramatic way in 1999 plunged me into another realm of knowing God’s love. I remember describing it as going from loving God to being IN LOVE with God. Again, I was overwhelmed with His love for ME. You see, the love of God is very personal.

In the last two years, I have known the love of God through the love of God’s people in practical, tangible ways as so many have walked with my family through a terrible storm and believed in us, ministered to us by their words and their actions, giving words of encouragement, hugs, prayers, and all sorts of practical gifts, and again, that love has changed me. I know more about unconditional love than I have ever known before.

Knowing the love of God in a personal way changes more than just my perceptions and understandings; it changes me. I become more like Him. I not only experience His love for me, but I find I am passionate about sharing His love with others.  And of such is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Acts 1:8  You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witness…

My prayer for you today is that you know the love of God in increasing ways and that as His love changes you, you will be a witness to that love.

Mikki