What is God’s Love

 John 15: 9 says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.

Now remain in my love

The author of true love is God! As Christians, we are called not only to know about love, experience a shallow existence of Love, and step in and out of love at will but to know the true meaning of what it means to remain in God’s love. The question is, what is God’s love?

We live in a world that treats love as a means to an end, a possession to be traded, to have or have not, to give or withheld, to acknowledge or reckon one’s worth, to make or break, to mend or rip apart at will and to praise an act of kindness or forego unnoticed.  As it may be, the world continues to labor in the quest of finding and experiencing the true meaning of love as God intended it but continue to drift far from the true meaning of God’s love.   

The kind of love God showed to the world is beyond what seems to have come to be, a mundane exchange of affection for the fulfillment of one’s earthly desire.  A twisted misappropriation of connotation deflecting from the true image of true and Godly love. 

The true love God showed the world came with a price that no human can replicate in its true essence.  The way love is portrayed to us and the type of love we’re asked to remain in has a profound and lasting foundation that should not be adulterated. 

 God gave the world the ultimate gift of love, His Son! John 3:16 “For God so [greatly] loved and dearly prized the world, that He [even] gave His [One and] [a]only begotten Son, so that whoever believes and trusts in Him [as Savior] shall not perish but have eternal life.” (AMP)

 Jesus took up the cross, paid the ultimate price, and gave His life.

John 15: 13, “No one has greater love [nor stronger commitment] than to lay down his own life for his friends. “ We have become accustomed to reciting the scriptures and biblical premises of love, yet we couldn’t be far from the true foundation of “remaining in God’s love.”  God’s love is not for the things of the world but a true love for us, the people created in His image.

1st Corinthians 13: 3 says, “If I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it does me no good at all (AMP). Indeed, without love, we are and have nothing but an “a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” 1st Corinthians 13 verse 1.  

 True love goes beyond mere words; as it is written in 1st Corinthians 13:4-8

•  Love endures with patience and serenity.

• love is kind and thoughtful and is not jealous or envious.

• love does not brag and is not proud or arrogant.

• It is not rude.

• It is not self-seeking.

• t is not provoked [nor overly sensitive and easily angered].

• It does not take into account a wrong endured.

• It does not rejoice at injustice but rejoices with the truth [when right and truth prevail].

• Love bears all things [regardless of what comes].

• believes all things [looking for the best in each one].

• Hopes all things [remaining steadfast during difficult times].

• Endures all things [without weakening].

Love never fails [it never fades nor ends].

 In the book of Malachi, chapter 1, verses 1-2, talks about God’s Love for Jacob. The [a]oracle (burdensome message) of the word of the Lord to Israel through [My messenger] Malachi. “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How and in what way have You loved us?”

 As people who have been given a protégée of true love, what has been our response to the beckoning call of true love that comes from God?

 You are loved; remain in God’s Love

By Mamay Worku

7/15/2023