God’s love — not like ours!

 

Today’s reading says that Christians tend to view the love of God in the same way that we love others, which is often selfishly and with impatience, suspicion, and conditions attached. That is, I most love those people who have characteristics that please me, and this can warp my idea of God’s love — thinking that He only loves me when I do the things that please Him.

This attitude is some of the reason Paul wrote to the Galatians. They were trying to please God by keeping rules so he wrote:

Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? (Galatians 3:2–3)

I understand this and am aware of the flesh and those selfish motives and actions that are contrary to living like Jesus. I’m also aware that loving others is not the same as my old nature’s version of love. Jesus said:

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34–35)

God’s love is unconditional, wants the best for me and is well described, both by the written Word and His living Word. But still the flesh tries to ruin it. I’ve realized from these and other verses and by the conviction of the Holy Spirit that when another Christian loves me with that God-like love, I selfishly enjoy its appeal to my old nature when I should be seeing it as a gift from God to show me how to obey the above new commandment! The people who are unselfish and love others like Jesus loves are models, teachers, instructors — not only a wonderful gift from God, but sent to show me what I should be doing also.

Abiding in the love of God is not wrong. It is the only way to survive the storms of life. Several other Christians have shown me how to love others like Jesus does by simply being like Him and I need to learn from that, not just selfishly eat it up like a bratty kid who will not share her birthday cake. God does not give His love to me so I will hoard it, but so I will share it.

Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:5)

The older King James version says: “And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Romans 5:5) so I searched the meaning of “poured into” and the sense is: “to be expressed, be poured out.” That is, God loves me so that His love will go forth from me, not for me to hoard it for my own enjoyment. This gives new meaning to verses like these two:

Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. (Hebrews 13:16)

Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. (Romans 12:13)

Surely the needs of others includes that amazing love. While sharing it with others, it will be a sacrifice, a giving up of my time, effort, and selfish I-wants, but such sharing is never going to leave me bereft for God’s love in inexhaustible. It never runs out. I can give it away and He pours more into my life.

PRAY: Of course I know this is true. It is the doing of it that often eludes me. Jesus, You are the source of all goodness and loving kindness, yet You have sent me several examples of how You want that to look in my life, not just for me to enjoy but to imitate. Thank You for Your sweet, unlimited love demonstrated. Enable me to be more teachable and to learn from and imitate these who are far more obedient than I have been.

How to know the heart of God . . .

 

Jesus says the greatest commandment is to love God with all our HEART. He is not referring to that organ that pumps blood but to the central or innermost part of our being. As I read through some of the Bible verses that describe what that love looks like, I realized that God wants love from us because He created us in His image and to restore that image, our hearts are to be like His heart.

In other words, the innermost part of God, His very being, is love; God loves us with all His heart. When He describes or talks about me in relation to my heart, He is telling me something about Himself.

There are not many verses that describe God’s heart. The first is when God saw sin growing rampant in the world:

Genesis 6:5–6. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.

I’m not the Creator, yet the evil in the earth grieves my heart too. I understand and can accept my grief more easily from reading that God has the same reaction to evil.

Reading more, the OT speaks of people with willing hearts who gave their skills and possessions to build a place of worship. God has a willing heart and gives His power and resources to do the same. He tells His people to not forget what He has shown them for God does not forget. They are to search after Him with all their heart for He seeks us with all His heart. He warns them not to have a heart that is deceived or that resists Him because His heart is always set on truth and to love and bless them.

Hundreds of verses carry the same ideas. God tells His people to have pure hearts, to serve Him with all their heart, to fill their hearts with His truths, and that He seeks those who are after His own heart. When that was not happening, He promised to give them a new heart:

Jeremiah 24:7. I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.

When Jesus came, lived and died and rose again, He brought new life to all who believe do that we could draw near to Him with that new heart that He promised. This is why He said in Matthew 5:8. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

Put it all together and I see that because of a new heart, I am better able to understand the heart of God.

Even though I still struggle with the old flesh and old way of doing things, the Lord continues to incline my heart toward Him so that, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ” (John 7:38) Faith changes the heart, even makes it like God’s life-giving heart.

The heart is the center of my spiritual life. It is where temptation and doubt strike, but also devotion and faith. By myself, I cannot make the changes or maintain them. The Lord opened my heart, just as He opened the hearts of those who first believed . . .

Acts 16:14. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.

When that happened to me, the Holy Spirit came to live in my heart yet I’m responsible to let Him rule as 1 Peter 3:15 says, “But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord” and not harden my heart against His rule or the rule of peace that comes as a wonderful demonstration of the heart of God . . . “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.” (Colossians 3:15)

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6) I’m in awe at realizing that all the great virtues God wants for my heart is because it makes it more like His heart. I can know Him better, even see His glory in His commandments. How awesome — when I obey Him from the heart, He can use me to show His incredible heart to others.