Contributor: Dolapo Olaoye
INTRODUCTION
In the last bible study, we looked at “The Joy of the Lord”. We learnt that only those who love the Lord and obey the Lord in all things can express the Joy of the Lord. We also learnt that the Joy of the Lord is our strength and saw how we could experience the fullness of the Joy of the Lord. We concluded that God did not promise that circumstances and situations will not arise that could try to rob us of his Joy but that he would overcome the world (John 16:33).
This week, we will look at The LOVE of God - we’ll be looking into God’s love, and the meaning of true love and its advantages. As we cannot define God, we cannot provide an inclusive account of who he is - Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us…” 1John 3:1. So, since God is incomprehensible, then so is his LOVE (a divine love). While we may and must speak truthfully about his love, we can never measure it. God’s love is unique, universal, unmerited, and personal. It’s saving, sacrificial and giving yet requiring only one thing - our faith.
John 3 Verse 14-17:
“14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”[b] 16For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
What is Love?
Love is complicated, it could be very difficult! Paul wrote a whole chapter about Love alone (It endures all things, it seeks not its own, …. greatest of things is love) – Faith, hope and love – the greatest of these is Love. And while you can get Faith good and hope good, sometimes we can get trouble with the Love.
Love will make you do things that you said you will never do. Love will make you ignore things that you thought you could never ignore because love has a way of surviving pain.
Even though the heart is strong, God knew to protect the heart. The heart is designed in such a way that the rib case helps to protect the organs in the chest such as the heart, the lungs from damage. God knew to protect the physical heart – even though the heart is strong, it is vulnerable.
God’s Love.
If I am to become the heart of God, that means I must be as strong as I am vulnerable! If I lose either one of them, I cease to represent the heart of God, if I go for the strong and don’t reflect the vulnerable, I do not reflect the heart of God! Am mistaken on the wrong identity of been a strong woman, a strong man – yes, but you are hard! And if we are hard, we are not like God because God gives us the hint that you must be strong enough to keep pumping but vulnerable enough that you have to be protected!
In the spirit realm, God wants us to guide our hearts for out of your hearts flows the issues of life and what he is talking about is “guide your spirit” because he doesn’t have a rib cage around your spirit! So, you have to stand guide over your heart! Who you let in and who you let out, what you let flow out of your heart. That’s where your creativity comes from, that’s where your endurance comes from that’s where the power to fulfil your vision come from. Out if your heart! Not your head, not your degree, not your intellect, not your vocabularies but out of your heart, flows the issues of life!
Who Exactly Does God Love?
When John wrote here about God, he says “God so loved the world” It would have been enough to say God love because God is Love! But he says that God so loved.
Peter said, I pray that you might know the love of God which passes all understanding. God said, I have loved you, with an everlasting love – I loved you when you were drunk, I loved you when you were high, I loved you when you were wicked, I loved you when you were evil, I loved you when you were stealing, I loved you when you were in the homeless shelter, I loved you when you were in jail, I loved you when you didn’t have food to eat, God so loved the world! It didn’t say that God so loved the church, it didn’t say God so loved the Christian, it didn’t say God so loved the believers, it says that God so loved the world!
God’s love will climb over on top of walls! It will grab a ladder up and reach them! It doesn’t matter what we think, we may not like the person, we may lock them out! But God loves even your enemies because they are God’s child too and GOD LOVES THEM! God feel in-love with the world whom he says its heart is continually wicked and every imagination in it is evil and still! God so loved the world!
We didn’t earn God’s love – God doesn’t love you because you are smart, or because you are talented. God told Jeremiah, before I formed you in the belle, I knew you and ordained you and sanctified you. Before you opened your mouth to cry or learn your first note or read the bible, God loved you! While you were living in sin, God loved you! While you were in the gutter, God loved you.
God so loved the world – It is the heartbeat of the gospel. If you don’t understand this, then you have arms, and legs and feet and toes and eyes and head but no heart – the heart of the gospel itself is in John 3:16: God so loved the world.
Having a Deeper Look at the Love of God.
The truth is Satan, knew the love of God so he wanted to get against God because he knew God loved man and hated sin and as long as what God loved (which is man), was separate from that which God hated (which is sin), God had no problem in his own emotions but if he could get man to sin, then man would be filled with what God hated and put God in a dilemma that if he reacted to what he hated, he would kill what he loved. That if reacted to what he loved, then he would have to love what he hated! The devil basically put what God hates (sin) in what God loves (us – the world) and literally asked God “how do you like them now?”
God warned Adam – he said the day you eat of the tree; you will surely die! And so now God is in a dilemma: “Do I come into the garden now and kill him? – but I love him!”. So, the doctrine of substitution was born in the dilemma that Satan placed God in. God spent time trying to figure out how to save what he loves and kill what he hates. God called and said, “Adam where art thou?” but Adam is hiding….
God still had to fix it, He knew man couldn’t fix the mess man made (by listening to Satan instead of listening to God)! He knew they couldn’t get themselves out of this, Adam couldn’t sew anything that would cover him well enough to make him righteous enough and so even in his sin, God helped him to cover up. God didn’t want to kill Adam because He loved him and of course there was consequences for his sin which he face.
What to do with the Love of God
GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD – According to Hebrews 10:3-10 (read): God’s blood is God’s Love. The price he paid to Love you! When we think of passion, we think of pleasure! when God thinks of passion, he thinks of pain! When I think of love, I think of wonderful feelings, when God thinks of love, he thinks of bruises – bruised for our iniquities… and by his stripes we are healed. Not just healed but made whole. To go from healed to whole, you must come back! Coming back to say thank you, thank you for how you changed my life, thank you for how you picked me, thank you for how you looked over my sins, thank you for how you made a way of escape, thank you for how you loved the unlovable, touched the untouchable, redeemed the unredeemable – I owe you the praise! God took BRUISES for you! – he took my bruises!! There is a love that endures all things! – It will never back away, it is The Love of God!
The Love of God is shared in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. The only way to love like God, is to be filled with God and when you get filled with God, you can love like God. When you are really filled with the Holy Ghosts, its not just you speaking in tongues. Some of the real sign of been filled with the Holy Ghost is:
• when you love your neighbour.
• when you love people who mistreated you.
• when you people after they have done you wrong.
You may have to love people at a distance, but you still love them! You don’t become God’s disciple by wearing long dresses, by not wearing makeup etc.
• You are God’s disciple when the LOVE of God affects how you treat the people around you.
• You are God’s disciple when you learn how to forgive!
• You are God’s disciple when you can’t hold a grudge.
• You are God’s disciple when you love people who you have nothing to gain from.
• You are God’s disciple when you don’t get anything back out of it but you still do it anyway!
• You are God’s disciple when you serve!
• You are God’s disciple when you carry the bruises of LOVE!
CONCLUSION
John 3:16 is a famous verse and it is important because it tells us about the unconditional love that God has for his creation, it teaches us about the sacrifice God made for us, and it helps us understand the eternal implications of being a follower of Jesus. The verse affirms who Jesus is, why he came to earth, and what belief in him results in. This verse depicts how great God’s love for the world is that he would be willing to offer up his son for us, which was a huge sacrifice on God’s part. It is because of God’s sacrificial love that believers gain eternal life.
True love always gives. Not only did God give His Son Jesus Christ, in Him also He gives a new life - eternal life. Everlasting life doesn’t just refer to our life without end, but a life with God in heaven for-ever. It is the life of God one possesses, new life that can relate to God. That is what we need -we were dead in sins and trespasses but made us alive together with Christ by His grace (Eph 2:1, 5).
