Oh to love HIM more
As some of you know, the epistle of I John holds a very dear place in my heart. The first time I ever read the Bible on my own, what I read was I John chapter 4. For over a year, that was all I needed to read to be blessed.
The reason I John is so special to me concerns the many usages of the word love” in the epistle. The love that is mentioned throughout I John is always agape” love. Although it is true the agape” is the love of God, it is also used in reference to other things as in I John 2:15:
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father in not in him.”
There is a command in this verse that for the most part is totally ignored among Christians. The command is DO NOT LOVE THE WORLD OR THE THINGS IN THE WORLD”. Can God make it any clearer? Now, this is not talking about how much we love” truffles or frozen fruit on a stick or tea or golf. We all say that we love” things, but I pray we don’t agape” them”.
We are not to love the world with agape” love. We are not to love the things of this world with agape” love. This love is reserved for God and for fellow believers. What is agape” love? An excellent place to look is I Corinthians 13, for it describes the attributes of this love as it is manifested towards each other. Simply put, agape” love is the love of God as manifested by Him, to Him or from Him to each other.
I John 4:8 states that God is love. This is what God IS. He IS love. Thus, what God manifests to us is LOVE whether we think it is or not. We then in turn strive to love God with the same love He loves us with. We strive to love each other with the same love He loves us with. We strive to let all that we do be done in love. Living and manifesting the love of God represents our highest mission in this life.
Of all the things the love of God is, perhaps the greatest (to me) is that it is unconditional. God does not love us BECAUSE we are good boys and girls. God does not love us IF we are good boys and girls. God loves us IN SPITE OF all we have done wrong and flaws we have. That God loves us in spite of ourselves, is one of the greatest things to be thankful for in this life.
We, being the center of God’s affection, are loved by God and He cannot get enough of us. When we make time for Him and spend quality time with Him in prayer and fellowship, we warm our Heavenly Father’s heart and bring Him great joy for because He loves us, He wants us around Him. The more we bask in God’s love, the more we like it and want more of it. Everyone wants to be loved, including God.
What keeps us from loving God with all our heart? Anything and everything that is more important to us than God. That is why the exhortation was DO NOT LOVE THE WORLD OR THE THINGS IN THE WORLD.” We can enjoy and use the things in the world, but we cannot afford to get to the point we cannot live without them, for that defines agape” love.
See, the love of God is far more than a fleeting infatuation that is here today and gone tomorrow. The love of God is a commitment to love from the heart, with all of the heart no matter what. If we allow all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life (I John 2:16) to usurp God and His love in our hearts; the world wins for these things are not of God but of the world.
God is our Father and He loves us as the children that we are. The depth of the love of God cannot be understood or comprehended by our mortal minds. It is just too deep and too big for us to grasp. When hear that God loves us, I am afraid it goes in one ear and out the other instead of registering within us. I can guarantee you that when the day comes you REALLY believe God LOVES you, your life will change. There is nothing so dynamic and dramatic in our lives than realizing that the love of God is far more than Jesus dying on the cross; for that was only the beginning of the love story.
Have you ever been in love” with someone? If you have, then you know the overwhelming desire is to be with them ALL THE TIME. When you are in love”, everything revolves around that significant other person. You may still be working or at school or whatever, but your mind and heart are with the one you love. I pray that we can all be in love” with God in that HE is the focal point of our lives and HE is the one we want to be with and not this silly world.
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Author: blessings2you
Location: Warrenton Missouri USA
Gender: Male
Age: 57
Blog Entries: 828 (archive)
Blog Comments: 1357
god called me to serve him when i was 16 years old while on a church work trip in new mexico in 1969. in the 40 years since; i attended bible school/leadership training, been ordained to the christian ministry and worked full time for a non-denominational ministry for nearly ten...
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in 1969 god stepped in and transformed my life as a sixteen year old teenager. after a couple of years of intense emotional ups and downs, i decided i needed a firm foundation in my life that went beyond emotional experiences. it was the decision to become involved with a...
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) but I realized I wasn't. 
How could that be? I had been taught of His ways since I could hold a spoon, but I didn't really