The Proof Of Love
Often, when someone thinks of love, they think of a strong feeling or emotion. But is that really love?
The Bible tells us that God is love. It does not say that “love” is God.
There are many definitions of love in these last days. If we accept the idea that love is God, then all the many definitions of love describe God, and if that were true, we would be most confused about who God is and what God is truly like. But the Bible makes it clear that God is love, so we need to get our idea of love from looking at God and how He describes it.
Here’s the challenge: God is Spirit and thus invisible, so we do not see Him like we would see someone or something in the material world. But there is a way to see Him.
Jesus was talking about the Father one day, and Philip, one of His disciples, said, “Show us the Father, and it will suffice us.” Jesus responded,
John 14:9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
Jesus came to show us the Father. He came to reveal God to us. Jesus also said this,
John 6:46 Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father.
But this brings us back to the question of how we describe love according to who God is instead of trying to describe God according to our own worldly idea of what love is. God proved He is love by a single act in history.
The apostle John said it simply this way,
1John 4:10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
The Scripture goes on to say,
Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God went out of His way; the Son laid down His life, and the Holy Spirit was sent to us as a seal of inheritance after we believed. God proved His love not by intense emotions He could not control. But by a deliberate act that was planned because it was rooted in His love for mankind.
The God kind of love sacrificially gives of itself to those who are loved. God’s love is revealed in the way He was willing to be put out and inconvenience Himself for the benefit of those who were the object of His love, even when they did not deserve it and could not do anything to earn it.
God’s love was rejected by many during the time of Christ, and still today is rejected by many. But it still stands clear and powerfully intact, just as it was on that fateful day when Jesus laid down His life. Scripture says we love Him because He first loved us, so until a person is reconciled to God’s love as it is presented in Christ, they will struggle to love God or others appropriately. The proof of love will always point us to Jesus and the sacrifice He made to reconcile us to God.
