God's Love

The seed for this post came from the book that Linda gave me called Fingerprints of God by Jennifer Rothschild.

Joe said in Sunday school once that the word agape hadn't been defined until Jesus defined it. I like that idea -- love hadn't been defined until Jesus came along and showed us what it was.

Paul does an excellent job of articulating what love is -- what is should be like -- in 1 Corinthians 13. If you read that passage, you can walk away with an idea of how we should love each other. If it's true, however, that Jesus showed us what love should be like, then what was the source of his definition? If Jesus is our best mirror of God -- if we can learn what God is like by watching his son, then doesn' t it stand to reason that the love Jesus defined for us is God-like love? Can't we make the leap that the way Paul explains how we should love each other is the way that God loves us?

Read 1 Corinthians 13 this way:

God is patient;
God is kind;
He is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
God's love does not insist on its own way;
God is not irritable or resentful;
He does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
God bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
God's love never ends.

Since high school the 1 Corinthians "love" chapter has always been one of my favorite scriptures. I find delight in the image it presents of how we should love each other -- how we should treat each other.

It's eye opening for me, though, to consider that this is how God loves us -- each one of us. Not in an abstract, wouldn't it be great if kind of way, but this is how we are loved.

When you think about it, this image of God is in opposition to some images of God.

• Think God is like Zeus, throwing lightning bolts around and raining anger on the mortals? God isn't like that at all -- he's patient and kind. He is not rude.
• Do you think God rejoices in the death of your enemy? God does not rejoice in wrongdoing; he rejoices in the truth.
• Do you think God throws up his hands in disgust, walking away from us as we continue to sin? God isn't like that. He bears all things. He never stops hoping for us.
• Do you think God has an uncompromisable will? Do you think he doesn't care what you think? Or listen to what would make your heart glad? God's love never insists on its own way. God cares more for us than for himself*.
• If you make a mistake, do you think God is going to "get you for that?" God is not irritable or resentful.
• Do you think God has a list of your sins (or your neighbor's sins), like Santa Claus? God keeps no record of wrongs**. God believes in you -- always, without fail. There is no list - not of your sins, and not of your accomplishments. There is only God's never ending belief in you.
• Do you think he could ever stop loving you? God's love never ends.

It's a natural step, isn't it, to believe that God loves us in the same way that he would teach us to love each other? And when we think about it, it blows some of our incorrect images of God right out of the water.

We often say "I believe in God." Rarely, I think, do we realize that God believes in us -- and it is an extraordinary faith.

Notes: * = The Message translation. ** = NIV translation. All others NRSV.
Images: Aren't they wonderful? Steve took these the other day. Thanks to him for letting me use them.