“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God…And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” (1 John 4:1a; 16)
God is love. Everything He does is done in love. It’s impossible for Him to do anything outside of love because He is love at the very core of His nature.
I’m not talking about a romantic love. To quote a popular rapper,
“The word love, well it was once overused
Back in the 70’s the word was abused
But I refuse to let love be diluted
We can’t allow physical lust to intrude it
Or pollute it cause there ain’t no excuse
For the greatest gift of all to be abused…”*
When God created the world, He did it with love. Love was in Him and motivating Him when He created the mountains, plants, oceans, animals, birds, planets, and stars. Love was motivating Him when He created mankind. He made us in His own image so that we could have a relationship with Him (Genesis 1:27).
As sons and daughters of God, we have the opportunity for that relationship that God envisioned when He made Adam and Eve. We are children of God (see Romans 8:15-16), and as such, He has given us His mind and His Spirit inside of us (see 1 Corinthians 2:16, 6:19). This means that when we live by the Spirit of God, we have love as our motive – like our Father in heaven.
It’s something I’ve been focused on living out myself for in the last few months: To love well, like Jesus did. For conversations and creativity and acts of service to be fueled by love. To love the people I’m serving or speaking with; to love God through it all. Sometimes it’s not the easiest – cleaning isn’t necessarily my favorite thing to do. But I want to be like Jesus, and loving well is a major part of that.
* “Say the Words” by DC Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWCcW3A08Vc
