Chapter 10
God Is Love
God loves you. God is love is the theme of the Bible;
all throughout the Bible this theme is perpetuated over and over. The Bible
only declares that God IS one thing. God is not compassionate, he is not
protective, he is not wrathful, and He is not just. He IS love. Love is the
driving force of the universe, because Love is God. I'm not saying that God is
loving, I'm saying that God is Love. It's a force; it's the essence of the
universe. It isn't an emotion or an action it is existence itself!
Everything in creation was created to help us
understand Love. I am going to capitalize Love because I am meaning Love as in
God. I am substituting the word God for Love. Everything in existence, the
universe, this planet, nature, you and me, was created to reveal the nature of
God. God had one big problem when He was revealing Himself to His creation, how
does the non-created one, reveal himself to the created. I don’t know if you
finally have realized how big of a problem this is or not, but please
understand, this is HUGE. God does not exist, so how does the non-existent
explain himself to those of us who exist inside of a fixed dimension, inside space-time.
God thought about existence, He planned what would be needed so that He could
have a relationship with His creation. How does Love reveal itself though? How
does an essence, reveal itself in a tangible way?
To solve this problem, God began to think up and
construct reality around this fundamental principle of God. Love is what God
is, therefore the entire Universe began to explode into existence in answer to
the thought of the One who is the originator of all. The laws of physics began
to testify to the existence of a God who cannot be understood or calculated yet
is always true, never varying or wavering. A God who sets things in motion, and
they do not stop unless acted upon by an opposite force. A God who knows
yesterday, today, and tomorrow, who knows every possibility and every possible
reality, yet has programed the ability of free will into existence, so that
through quantum mechanics we can choose which direction to go without being
controlled and micromanaged by the thoughts of an all-powerful dictator.
Then He gave us creation, the love a mother has
for her offspring, both humans and animals alike, began to paint a picture of
who God is and what His desire is for us. He created sense so that we could
experience things around is in vibrant colors, smells, textures, tastes and
sounds. He gave us the ability to enjoy existence, revealing to us the delight
God has in His creation and the Joy that life brings to Him. He gave us
emotion. The ability to feel sorrow, rejection, peace, happiness, acceptance,
anger, and most importantly love. All these things God has wired into creation
to help us understand the one universal constant in the universe, that which
drives reality, Love.
This is why I do not say that God is loving. No,
God does not have emotion, God created emotion. How could God have that which
He created? Would He really create Himself? No, that is absurd. These things
are a revelation of His character. They are the way in which God interacts and
reveals Himself to a creation that cannot understand God, and can only
experience Him through their limited perspective on reality.
Thus,
when we read the Bible, and are learning of the character of God, and who He
is, we must always remember that when the Bible was written, it was written by
humans who did not understand, and could not understand Love. They wrote in the
language they could understand, and they interpreted what they saw, heard, and
experienced in ways that made sense to their limited understanding. This is not
wrong, this is How God reveals Himself. God brings His character down to our microscopic
view of existence. He slowly reveals himself as we obtain knowledge. As we can
handle more, God reveals more. This is how it will be for all eternity. Always
growing in an understanding of God, yet never fully grasping His reality,
because He does not have a reality. This makes me smile as I write it because
it sounds so confusing and absurd, but it is true. God does not exist as we
consider existence. He is something else entirely.
Moses, that ancient leader of God’s people, once
asked God to show him His glory. He wanted to see God in all His majesty,
perfection, and awesomeness. God responded,
“…I
will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the
LORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will
show mercy on whom I will show mercy.[1]
When God revealed Himself to Moses
what do you think Moses saw? Was it a brilliant show of fireworks, and
otherworldly glory, power, fire, and awe-inspiring majesty? Moses makes no
mention of any of that. He only records what He considered to be the important
revelation of what God’s glory is, and who God truly is. What causes Moses to
fall down with His face to the ground is not fire, it is not glory, it is the
simple declaration, the voice of God declaring His own character.
“And
the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the
name of the LORD. And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD,
The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness
and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of
the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third
and to the fourth generation.”[2]
Some read this and think that there
are two sides to God, a loving merciful side, and a stern condemning side full
of justice. This is not the case. God is merciful and gracious, He loves to the
uttermost those He has created. So what then is this talk about visiting
iniquity on the 3rd and 4th generation? This goes back
again to what God is not willing to do, and that is force. Force excludes the
ability to have relationship. If God held a gun to your head and told you to
love Him, he could adjust your outward behavior, but your heart would not love
Him. You would serve Him from fear. The reason God cannot clear the guilty, is
because they do not wish to have anything to do with God. The reason God cannot
forgive this type of iniquity is because it violates the right of the
individual to do so. Sin is nothing more than a desire to be separated from
God. Outside of God there is no existence, so the ultimate end of that desire
is nonexistence. God gives to all that which is their greatest desire. God’s
ultimate plan for us is happiness, and one way or another God seeks to fulfill
that for us. So the wicked are lost and go unforgiven, passing their weaknesses
on to their children generation after generation. However, God is able to
forgive, and He is waiting to accept those who seek Him.
In Isaiah 63:8-9 God says,
"These
are My people. These are my real children." So he(God) saved them. The
people had many troubles, but he was not against them. He loved them and felt
sorry for them, so he saved them. He sent his special angel to save them. He
picked them up and carried them, just as he did long ago…”[3]
God Loves to the uttermost. God didn’t just
redeem us; he carried us and was afflicted for us. I don’t think it is too far
of a stretch to say that God still carries those afflictions right along with
us. Jesus says,
“When
birds are sold, two small birds cost only a penny. But not even one of those
little birds can die without your Father knowing it. God even knows how many
hairs are on your head. So don't be afraid. You are worth more than a whole
flock of birds.”[4]
Who is it that notices when the sparrow falls?
It is the father, and if he notices the sparrow we do not need to fear, because
we are of more value to him than many little birds. We hold value before God.
So often we spend our lives trying to get people to see value in us without
realizing that we are already infinitely more valuable than any value man could
place on us.
Jesus claims that the father loves Him, and what
reason does He give for this? He says in John 10:17-18,
“The
Father loves me because I give my life. I give my life so that I can get it back
again. No one takes my life away from me. I give my own life freely. I have the
right to give my life, and I have the right to get it back again. This is what
the Father told me."[5]
Why does the father love Jesus? He gave His life
up for us all. Jesus says that the father’s commandment for Him was to lay down
His life for us. This plan of redemption wasn’t an act of Jesus to protect us
from the wrath of the father! This was an act by God, Love itself, so that He
could be reunited with the creation He had created. God is love and He is
drawing us back to Himself. He longs to see us one with Him again.
Remember
what Jeremiah 31:3 says? God has loved us with an everlasting love. The father
is drawing us back to himself with loving kindness. He is not out to get us, or
waiting to see what things we are going to do wrong. He longs to see us succeed
and be made one with Christ.
Christ is pleading with us to accept the love of
the father and consequently His love for us. In other words, God is asking us
to accept Him for what He is. He is not a created being to be understood and
known fully. He will never be fully comprehended because we are created and He
is not, but He is continually revealing more and more about Himself. The most
important of these revelations is that He IS Love. As we grasp a new hold on
the love God has for us we will see the Bible in a whole new light. The truth
of the Bible becomes alive and the joy of Christ’s victory over sin becomes
real. The very power that Christ operated with here on earth is the same power
the father offers to anyone who will follow in the footsteps of Christ.
“But
in all these troubles we have complete victory through God, who has shown his
love for us. Yes, I am sure that nothing can separate us from God's love--not
death, life, angels, or ruling spirits. I am sure that nothing now, nothing in
the future, no powers, nothing above us or nothing below us--nothing in the
whole created world--will ever be able to separate us from the love God has
shown us in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[6]
Jesus is the embodiment of the
character of God. Jesus is Love revealed. Jesus is the foundation on which we
base all scripture. As we look through the Bible and God’s dealing with
humanity, we must ask ourselves if our understanding fits with what we know
about God through Jesus. In other words, does our understanding reflect a God
who is himself, Love. If it does not, then it is not the Bible that is wrong,
but our interpretation of it. God is Love, and He is seeking to reveal Himself
to you.
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