What a person desires is unfailing love Prov 19:22
What does God want the most? What is His greatest desire? ” ‘Of all the commandments, which is the most important?’ ‘The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28-31) With these words God makes known what He wants most: love. And even more clearly, a love that does not hold back but gives all.
I find the human search for love fascinating. It is man’s greatest obsession. The things we do for love go against reason. People will suffer physical, emotional, and verbal abuse just to have love. Is it any surprise that at the end of the day what we want most is love? It says God made man in His image (Gen 1:26). And if that is what God wanted the most, it makes sense that we desire it the most. It is the theme of almost every song and countless movies.
Even most of the world’s most awful problems go back to love. I think of endemics like sex trafficking. I think of the men who exploit women and children in this black market. I burn with anger toward them; they are the reason these women and children hurt. And then I think, “Why are they doing it?” And it hits me. They buy prostitutes because they want these women to tell them that they are something special. They crave affirmation. And why do they not have it already? The answer reveals broken lives and broken homes. Somewhere along the way they did not find the love and affirmation they so craved. Its not an excuse for their actions. But it makes me think, “If we didnt have broken homes but rather homes filled with love, would people even do things like this?”
To what length will God go to have love? I mean He could have forced us all to worship and obey him, taken away free will completely. But He didn’t. Because for love to be love, it has to have a will. Then came the Great Betrayal. Man in the garden decided to put himself first, destroying perfect love. Selfishness was introduced. God did nothing wrong. He did not provoke the betrayal. We hurt Him. In any human relationship when someone hurts us we put distance, we separate ourselves from them. Isn’t that what we deserve from God? Hell is nothing more than eternal separation from God. We deserve that separation because of our betrayal. And yet we find that God will go to great lengths to have our love. Instead of only caring about justice (which is about the person getting what they deserve) God gives grace and dies for us. God cannot be unjust and yet He does not want to be separated from us. So what does He do? He sends an Atonement. Jesus lives the perfect life and dies to pay for our sin. Justice is satisfied and love is victorious. All we have to do is believe in that sacrifice and accept it. Rejecting it is rejecting God’s love.
I cannot pay back God back. There is no way I can make up for Jesus dying on a cross. There is no way I can make up to Him for the bad things I have done to Him, even though He never did anything wrong. And I finally realized that He already knew I couldn’t pay Him back. He already knew I could never love Him as much as He loves me. He already knew I could not fix the situation and make it right. That’s what Jesus did. Jesus made things right between me and God. So what can I do? If I can’t make it up to God, what do I do? Nothing? Then I hear God say “Love me. All I want from you is love.”
How can I love God? Love in its purest form is completely selfless. It acts selflessly, seeking only to please another. “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me” (John 14:21). As it is with love so it is with obedience. Obedience does not ask “What’s in it for me?” At times I choose which commands I want to obey, the ones where I benefit. I have a tendency to disregard the ones where I do not get something out of obeying. When God asks me not to sin I ask “Why? This is pleasurable. What’s in it for me?” Then comes God’s response: “If that’s your focus, then you are not motivated by love. When obedience is not motivated by love, it becomes duty. And duty is a burden. But my commands are not burdensome. I just want you to love Me. This may not please you, but it pleases Me. If you want to love me, then you wont make it about you and ask ‘why should I do this’? You will just trust Me and do it.” A good example of this is forgiveness. I have long struggled with forgiveness. Mostly because I was hurt and they are not sorry, so how do I benefit by forgiving? I do not know if I do benefit. I just know that its not supposed to be about that. It’s supposed to be about what God gets out of it. Though often when I obey I do get something out of it, it is not the point. Love breeds life in our hearts. We were made to love and be loved in return.
Love and humility go hand-in-hand. You cannot have love and be prideful (focused on yourself). Grace breeds humility, which lends itself to love. There is no love without humility. There is no humility without love. Humility begins when we realize we are unworthy and need God. Every day we need God. We have to depend on Him. We are unworthy of the sacrifice. Who ever heard of a good man intentionally taking the place of a criminal and suffering his death sentence? But grace goes beyond that. I am unworthy of all the good things in my life. Everything good is grace from God. It is grace that I have a car, a comfy bed to sleep in, money to go get coffee, people who love me, and food to eat. I have no rights before God: I am not entitled to these good things. When I have a bad day, I cannot say its because I am entitled to a good one. But its important to see that while we are unworthy, God does not see us as worthless. If He did, why would He care about our love?
Though there are different kinds of love, love in its purest form is not what God does. It’s Who He is. There are different kinds of love: eros, phileo, and agape. Agape is the kind of love that sets God apart from all other love in this world. It’s a love feast. 1 John 4:8 “God is love (agape). Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.” This passage shows me how it actually takes God (agape) to love (agape) God. So if I want to love ( in the agape way) then I need God to do it. If God is agape, then it takes agape to do agape. And that kind of love breeds life in me.
