“Because God is love, He is unconditionally committed to my well-being.”–Bill Bright
When we think of love and the Bible, we often remember I John 4:16, “God is love”, and I Corinthians 13, as well as many others. Scripture is filled with images of love. In fact love, in one word-form or another, occurs 516 times! We in our modern times throw around the word “love” and rarely consider the depth or the weight of it.
In the Old Testament, most references to love are that of having affection for (ahab), a mixture of romantic and friendly love. This is how we still love those around us, for several reasons. First, we have a need to love. We have to have something, a pet, a lover, a child, onto which we can shower our affections and gifts. Second we have a need for love. We are always trying to fill the void of isolation and loneliness that sin and the Fall have caused in us. Third, we have a need of love. From the squishy gushings of infatuation to the contentment of companionship, we have a inborn desire to connect and to feel emotions for others.
Then Jesus enters the picture, in the Bible and in our lives, and the whole paradigm of love changes. Suddenly all of the scriptural references (in the New Testament) are agape: pure, spiritual love. First Jesus talks about this truer love; then Paul, Peter, and John write about it in their epistles. Love suddenly has all of this depth, this height, this completeness, that our worldly love is anemically lacking!
But this is not some revolution in how love is to God. He has always loved this way. The Trinity was never weighed down by our needs (affection or isolation) because of the communion they have shared since eternity past. Love has always been complete–We were the ones to make it shallow!
Amid all of the affection love in the Old Testament, two words jump out describing God’s love for us. In Deuteronomy 7:7, Psalm 91:14, and Isaiah 38:17, we find chashaq, “clinging to, joined together by love” love. In Deuteronomy 33:3, we see chabab, “cherish in your bosom” love.
God may be Father, but He loves like a mother would! In some transcendant, spiritual way, God desires to cuddle with us, to hold and protect us. He desires safety and maturity for us. He wants the best for us.
Now, sometimes, like with our earthly parents, we misunderstand the good that He sends our way. Pain, suffering, sorrow, and death were never meant to be part of our world. But now that they are, God uses them to shape us and remake us back into His full image. Romans 8:28 tells us that all things, good, bad, ugly, and unwanted, work together for our good. In Revelation 3:19, we learn that God’s rebuke is a sign of His friendship love (phileo) for us.
When I left home to move to Georgia, I thought my mother would just die to be apart from me for the first time in 23 years. I asked her if she wanted things to go differently. Her response, one of her many lessons in wisdom, was, “I can’t want you to always be the same, to always stay with me. Life is about growing up. If you didn’t grow up and leave, then something is wrong. It hurts, but I know it is the best.”
God desires for us to return His love, to return to His love. He desires communion with us as He knows in the Trinity. He shapes our lives so that the best thing (salvation) will happen to us. He chooses to let us choose him back so that our love is truly a gift back to Him. As you go about this week, open your eyes to the depth of love God has for you: love shown simply because of who you are and love in the form of lessons to be learned.
