For God's Love Is...

Romans 5:8 - “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” (NLT)

February often brings us thoughts and memories of Valentine’s Day. We think about love and the people in our life that we love, maybe there might be some people that love us too. Either way we find ourselves inundated with hearts, cards, images of cupid, and what we believe to be love. There are so many definitions for love, it can get overwhelming.

A quick search shows us that there are many levels to the word love. Philia is the love between good friends. I can think of some people that I have “philia” love for. There is Eros love, which is hopefully reserved for our spouse, as that is an intimate, physical, and sensual love. There is Philautia, which is a love for oneself. The Greek’s believed that you had to have a love for yourself before you could have an honest love for someone else. Then you have God’s love. Agape love. Agape love is a selfless, altruistic, and universal love that is often described as everlasting. It's a type of love where you care for someone without expecting anything in return.
When Christ died for our sins, God demonstrated just how selfless His love for us was. He chose to forgive us through His love. Through this great forgiveness, He showers us with so much unselfish love that we cannot help but make that love contagious to others. This love that God provides helps us to be more creative within our pursuits and within our relationships. God also showers us with a Biblical love that we can study and read about in the text.

God’s love for us is great. Even though we were far from Him, He showed up, became one of us, and chose to lay down His life for us so that we might know how great His love for us is. We just heard about this covenant love that He gave us, and so our end of the agreement is to live a life in which we love others the same way that He first loved us. 1 John 3:16 tells us, “We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. “ Hopefully we are found loving like Jesus.

- Pastor Mike