“And love comes from me. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for GOD IS LOVE. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. GOD IS LOVE, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.” 1 John 4:7,8,16

How many times have we heard that GOD IS LOVE? But do we think about what that means and if it even matters to me? Does it mean that love is something that God contains in addition to a whole lot of other things, that he’s a really nice Guy/God and that Jesus came just to preach about love as one of many things? Or might it mean that love is bigger than that, that love is the very essence of God, that he is the one and only source of love and that if we are to have this love, it must first come from him? 

Paul gives us a good idea of what this love looks like in 1 Corinthians 13. 

“If I speak in human and angelic tongues* but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.”

Though not a definition of love, it is 15 concrete and identifiable attributes of love. They tell us what love is by telling us what it does. And Paul tells us that nothing is more important than love, not even faith. And if any one of these attributes Paul lists is the closest to the heart of this God Love, it would be that “love does not insist on its on way”. Love is the fulfillment of the law because “love does not insist on its own way” but on God’s way. It says “Thy will be done” instead of “My will be done.” 

In this world we live in today, our word love has come to mean very little if anything at all. We say we love God, our neighbor, our spouse, our family and our friends, but we also love the weather, our homes, our material possessions, our pets, Starbucks, sports, clothes, and food to name a few—we love practically everything! But in Jesus’ day, things were a little different. They first of all didn’t dilute the meaning by saying they loved everything, and they had different words for different kinds of love. And the love that Jesus lived and taught and the love that was demonstrated and observed between the people following Jesus was so noticeably different from anything else anyone had ever seen, that the people of that day gave it its own name—they called it agape.

How often do we read or hear, or do we tell others that GOD LOVES US?

“I have loved you with an everlasting love. JER 31:3 Even before I formed you in the womb I knew you. JER 1:5 I love you so much, I have counted the hairs you have on your head. MATT 10:30 Whoever remains in love remains in Me and Me in him. 1 John 4:16 For I love you so much that I gave My one and only Son John 3:16 And while you were still sinners my Son gave his life for you that you might live.” Romans 5:8

Does it mean anything to know that the one and only God, the creator of all that exists loves you more than you can possibly comprehend? That he loves you not just as a mass of humanity, but as an individual, he knows you by name? He loves you so much that he always knows how many hairs you have on your head. He knew you intimately even before you were born. “Before birth the LORD called me, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name”. Isaiah 49 He knows us because he is the one who created us. He loves us not for who we are or have become or what we have accomplished or how religious or righteous or good or even holy we might be. He loves us no matter how little we have accomplished, if we never go to church, if we’re not very good at all or if we’re very, very far away from being holy. God loves us not for who or what we are in life or what the world thinks of us. He loves me and he loves you simply because we are his, we are his children.

And GOD WANTS US TO LOVE HIM.

He wants us to love him so much. “Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.” John 14:21

Deuteronomy 6 tells us more of what loving God looks like. “Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with your whole heart, and with your whole being, and with your whole strength.”

And Jesus gives us more in Matthew 10 on what this loving God with our whole heart and being and strength really means; “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.”

In Luke 10 Jesus reiterates the importance of loving God. “And now a lawyer stood up and, to test him, asked, ‘Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the Law? What is your reading of it?’ He replied, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said to him, ‘You have answered right, do this and Life is yours.”

I often hear people talking about the importance of loving our neighbor, especially as our world appears to spin farther out of control and we seem to be more and more intolerant of those who don’t share our views and opinions. There is no doubt that we could all stand to love each other a whole lot more. But rarely if ever do I hear anyone, anywhere talking about loving God. Jesus made it clear in Matthew 22 that loving God was more than important, it is the most important thing of all. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment.”

So, how do we stack up?

Do we love God more than anyone or anything? Do we believe it is even possible to love him that much—or is it something that is only achievable by those extra special people we call the saints? Does God really expect us regular people, those of us who live out in the real world with family and friends and problems and responsibilities like paying the bills to love him like that?

I know a man, a regular person, who found himself in the hospital one day several years ago. In a matter of minutes he was placed on oxygen and someone was drawing blood for testing. Before long, he was being prepared for a blood transfusion. If anyone knew what his problem was, no one was saying.

The next day, the testing continued. More tests, scans and something new, a biopsy.

Toward the end of the day, a doctor he hadn’t seen before appeared in his room and explained to him that he had cancer. They had it narrowed down to two different types but wouldn’t know for a few days which one it was. He was told that he was being released from the hospital, but that in 10 days he would begin chemotherapy. In the meantime there would be more tests and scans that would be needed, He would also need to have what they called a port to be surgically implanted through which he would receive the chemotherapy.

It probably comes as no surprise that the man spent quite a bit of time thinking about death during the following days and even weeks as he began chemo. He had thought about dying before, but this time was different. This time it could well be real.

What the man ultimately discovered surprised him. He came to find that if the choice were his, he would prefer to die. Not because he was afraid of the cancer and chemotherapy and whatever suffering he might experience. Certainly not because he didn’t have a good and happy life. And not because he wanted to leave his wife, family and friends behind or put them through the pain of watching him die. He would choose to die because in this time of contemplating death, he discovered that he loved God more than anyone or anything. He realized that more than anything else, he wanted to be with God—Now. And he had never imagined this until then.

But something bothered him. It bothered him a lot. Why him? Why had God blessed him by allowing him to love him like this when there were so many others who deserved this privilege a whole lot more than he? So he set out to scour the internet and read books, and anything and everything he could find to hopefully find the answer. And he asked God about it all the time for many years in his attempt to find the answer to his question—why me? And he finally found what he believes is the answer. The answer is we have to surrender. We must surrender our will totally to God and allow him to do whatever he wants with us, and in return God fills us with this love, he fills us with his life, he fills us with his very essence. And the man also learned he was not singled out for this gift, God wants it for all of us. But we must say yes, we must first give God our permission to change us.

There are many people out there like this man. They just aren’t that easy to identify because God chooses to work only in the humble.

The man had surrendered to God quite a few years before he was diagnosed with cancer. He still remembers how hard it was to find the nerve to do it in the first place, and how difficult it was to continue over time when everything in him kept trying to take that permission and that control back. And it wasn’t easy, especially in the beginning because just like it had said in the many books he had read over the years, God did send him challenges and difficulties and trials, and yes, even suffering. Each one seemingly more challenging than the last. But these things also slowly transformed him so that by the time he was diagnosed with cancer, he had begun to look forward to whatever God had planned for him, no matter what the outcome might be.

There is a story in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke that I would like to share. 

“As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered him, “Why do you call me good?* No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and your mother.’”He replied and said to him, “Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth.”Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to [the] poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” At that statement his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.”

If you’re like me, you probably don’t pay much attention to this story. For one thing, Jesus can’t be speaking to us, because it’s about people who are rich and we’re not rich (no matter that 2/3 of all the people in our world live on less than $10 per day). It must only be meant for people like Bill Gates and Elon Musk. And for another thing we don’t really believe God would expect anyone to give up everything to gain eternal life. Surely being generous is enough. And for a third thing, it’s just too scary to think it does apply to me and Jesus might mean it, so we just sort of ignore it, like we do with other hard verses. 

This story is from Mark. I like it because some of the wording is slightly different from the others. After the young man says he has obeyed the commandments and just before Jesus tells him to sell what he has, Jesus says “You are lacking in one thing.” 

One thing? What one thing? 

This story is not so much about money as it is about Jesus showing this young man where God actually stood in his life. This was a person who did all he believed was necessary and he hoped/expected Jesus would confirm it. Like some of us, he thought he was good like he was, doing what he was doing, that nothing else was needed. But Jesus forced him to be honest with himself and see that he loved this world and the things of this world more than he loved God. And through this story, Jesus is asking us to do the same. Do we love the LORD, our God, with our whole heart, and with our whole being, and with our whole strength? Will we surrender all that we have, our money, our homes and the security and comfort that comes with them, our status in life, our health, our families and even our plans for our future for God? Or are we too lacking in one thing? 

I have a good friend who normally comments on my blog when we’re together somewhere later face to face.I can see and hear him now saying “pretty good blog but a little long”. And he may be right, but I have one last story to share with you. It’s another one of those hard ones, one of those we try to ignore and pretend we never heard and even if we don’t, we convince ourselves it doesn’t apply to me. This story is about people like me and possibly even you as well. It’s a story about those who do more than the minimum for the church and for God. It’s written for those who serve, no matter whether they lead or follow. It’s for those who give their fair share or even more than their fair share of whatever they have been given, be it their time, talent or their treasure, for reasons only they and God know. This story is intended for those who strive to do their best to do what they believe God is calling them to do. 

But are we doing all God is calling us to do? Or could we like the rich young man, be lacking in one thing? The answer could determine where we spend eternity.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,* but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, o ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you.* Depart from me, you evildoers.’  Matthew 7:21-23

The will of the Father is not as complicated as we make it out to be. Jesus tells us it is simply to love him more than we love anything or anyone else. It’s the first and the greatest commandment. We can’t do it on our own, no matter how much we insist on trying—only God can make it happen. We must first give God our permission, we must surrender our everything, including all those great plans we have made for our future, to him. We must allow him to empty us of ourselves until what we want no longer matters to us. We must hold on and patiently wait and continue to say yes while God does his God stuff in us. 

No matter how much we want it and how hard we try, we can’t have both, we can’t love God and the World. We have to choose. This life we’re living, this life that might end any minute, is all about making this choice.

And sadly, continuing to not make a choice is a choice.

*A song about Surrendering our Heart to God by Lauren Daigle