Misconceptions of What Love Means
Most people believe that the meaning of “good” is a healthy amount of comfort and pleasure, or at least an absence of suffering and pain. As Americans, we are all on the pursuit of happiness—it’s one of our rights! Even our pursuit of God is often selfish. Knowing that only He can satisfy and that nothing else in the world can fulfill us, we expect God to make us comfortable, happy, peaceful, joyful, and contented.
We are so obsessed with ourselves that we refuse to deny ourselves any pleasure or comfort available. We think air conditioning, showers, toilets, TV's, and microwaves are rights that we cannot live without. Many of us are physically unhealthy and spiritually destitute not because we are deprived, but because we overindulge in “loving” ourselves! An example of this kind of “love” is the person who loves his dog so much that he never denies it a treat. The dog eventually gets so fat it can hardly move and has severe health problems. As a result of the owner’s “loving,” the dog is in misery and pain. Apparently we don't understand what love truly means. A similar example is a parent who over-indulges his children because he “loves” them. Because the parent thinks love is the opposite of pain, he does not discipline his children; instead he gives them everything they want when they want it, and lets them “live their own life.” The end result is usually spoiled, selfish, rebellious and/or bored children. Such children are rampant in today’s society because the parents do not understand what love truly means.
While growing up I hated school, to me it was torture; so loving myself meant to do as little as possible. Yet, junk food tasted great and brought me pleasure so I ate as much as I could get. In a strange way without knowing it, my misconception of love affected my relationship with God. Because I could not recognize as love anything that did not squeeze into my understanding of love.
I have heard sermons stressing how much God loves me, I have had people come up to me and say “God wanted me to tell you He loves you.” However, I never heard the definition of His love. I did not feel loved by God, and I was not to my understanding experiencing His affection for me. Yet, “God is love” I could not deny that, because the bible says so.
Therefore, as a result of my experience I made this conclusion: That God's love does not always keep me safe, makes me feel good, or gives me what I want even if it is a good thing. He does not deliver me from sin when I want Him to; when I'm down and out, and cry out He does not always lift that burden; when I pray for things good things, sometimes the opposite happens. In addition, His love is not very intimate, for I could not hear Him or feel Him, nor very sharing and open for I still did not feel I knew Him., He still seemed distent, hidden and hard to find.
It was already clear to me that our God does not cater to our outward wants and desires, just take a look at Paul whom God loved,
“Are they ministers of Christ?—I speak as a fool—I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; 26in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness—besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation?” 2 Cor11:23-29
Yet, I must confess it was not the outward things I longed for (nicer clothes, friends, popularity, money, a nice car, better food, or a more comfortable bed); it was for deliverance and power over sin, to feel love for Him, to Know I know Him, to have joy in my salvation, and to feel connected with the Lord and having the freedom to pray and worship him through out the day. Yet I was not experiencing any of this. Therefore, I wondered what is the big deal that God loves me, if His love does nothing for me? This terrible thought would come and haunt me, but I would stuff it, forget about it; Then finally something else would trigger it, and the cycle would continue.
But knowing this mindset was wrong, and that His love must be good, I would start thinking I must be perfect in order to experience His love. Yet, I knew I could not be perfect w/o His help, But it seemed He would not help me unless I was perfect; this would leave me hopeless. I wrote this feeling out in a e-mail I wrote on my last mission trip.
“So I must say, “I don’t get it! No! AHHH” so His love and acceptance does not depend on my goodness, holiness and diligence, cool and wonderful. But is it not true that if I want to feel any of His love and acceptance, have my eyes opened, feel I have intimacy w/ Him, get anything in the spiritual realm or make good of any of His promises, that I have to be perfect? Am I totally deceiving myself when I think this way? Are not 99% of His promises “If’s” such as if I’m perfect and holy then… or am I wrong?
The truth is I want to feel I know God, to be able to grasp in my heart a bit of His love, holiness, grace and mercy. I want to feel He is in me, to have my eyes and ears opened, to be able to hear His voice and above all to know HOW to walk in His Spirit. But I don’t have these things from my understanding, SO NOW WHAT!!
It sometimes seems God won’t give me these, and this makes it hard for me to eat hook, line and sinker how much God loves and accepts me when I still live in defeat, chained with sin, feeling that He is not with in, not able to feel a thing in the spiritual realm, nor hear His voice.
I do see how part of my problem is I’m so focused on this temporal life, If I think about God’s love and acceptance connected w/ eternity, yea it means a lot! Heaven instead of hell, and a hope of one day seeing and being like Him, but what about this life?
So I’m told I can’t earn His love, but it does seem when we’re trying to do such, it’s for the vain selfish reason of wanting something from God here on earth, not getting it and then feeling to get it we have to do more. But can I keep from wanting to feel He is in me, and to be able to walk in His Spirit? It seems the reason I can’t do such is because I don’t have enough faith, I’m filthy, weak and sinful, pretty apathetic and un-diligent, but Hey the very thing I want from God is the ability not to be this way! AHH, He does not seem to help me in this way being loving and all, so this is what causes me to think I have to some how be perfect, and then He will help me, it’s either this or a different misconception it brings of God. I want God to be my sovereign Santa clause, and when He is not, it seems I have no where else to go but that I’m not doing something right.
I’m told just to rest in His love, but what does that mean? It’s funny I guess I’m stressing my self out by trying to rest in His love, I hear I need to be able to receive love before I can give it, and that’s another underlining issue. I’m trying hard to believe that He loves and accept me, yet it hard, and that is way this e-mail was written. O I would love to feel his love, my faith does not make it real or good enough, and often it’s all I have to lean on.”
I could not feel, see or understand that God loved me. He was not giving me anything I wanted, and I wanted was good things: I wanted deliverance over sin, to have passion for Him in prayer and worship, but the heaven where silent, I felt forsaken.
I did not understand God's love, wisdom and timing. But now He has revealed to me that before I could experience His love, I needed to have the foundation that: He does indeed love me and what this means.
Taking A Deeper Look
We need to understand His love, not for our own benefit alone, but also others. A deeper understanding of His love would change how we counsel and teach other Christians, how we witness to the lost, and how we intercede for others.
Now the bible says, this is how God demonstrated His love towards us: while we where still sinners; Christ dies for us. Still we know that if we do not repent and trust in Jesus, one day He will judge us in fury and wrath, and cast us into Hell. Therefore, God still sends people He loves to hell. This show us God is not light on sin, He did not die only to forgive us our sins and get us into heaven, but He died that He could save us from sin, and that we would “go and sin no more.” He made away through the cross, burial and resurrection.
Therefore, a problem arises with telling everyone “God loves you”, without explaining what it means. Some logical people, may think in light of their false understanding of love, and come to the conclusion that all this “God loves me” stuff is a lie. For there is a definition of truth, it is that "word and deed equal truth." So if I hear that God loves me and I can't see any evidence; then it's not true. If you tell me you love me, but never will talked to me, and treat me like trash; your word would not hold any weight. Therefore, if they hear that God loves them, but are not experiencing His love according to their understanding, then it goes that this Love stuff is a bunch of bull.
Others may think, if God loves me, then that means He would never hurt me or send me to hell. Then they hear preached “no matter what you do, God loves you, and nothing can separate you from His love, not even your sin.” This gives them the peace to live for themselves thinking “it makes no difference how I live, God loves me anyway.” I see many of my generation living as if this is true.
Oh how we need to understand His love!!!! The way God’s grace and love is preached today, encourages people think God's love a license for lawlessness, and loose and selfish living. Or since it is not explained, people think how their own life has been hell and they see the evil that covers the world and they say to heck loving God nonsense.
Gods Love is Unconditional, yet Manifested in Different Ways
After I really cried out to God, longing to understand His love and to be healed from my misconceptions. I got an insight while reading the story of ‘The Prodigal Son’.
Notice how in the story, the son take his inheritance early and waste it on loose living. Only for a famine come when his money runs out, so he becomes a beggar and later finds a job feeding pigs, but he was not treated to kindly, and longed to eat what he fed to the swine.
Now tell me was the prodigal son loved by his father while in he was in the far away country completely miserable and starving? Yes! The father loved the son just as much when the son was away, as when he came home. Yet, tell me, was the son experiencing his father’s love? NO! Moreover, if he stayed where he was, he likely would have starved to death.
Therefore, the father loved him, yet his love was doing nothing for him. So this lead me to ask ‘how was the fathers love manifested while the son was away?’ Here is how: The father longed for his son to returned, he wanted to share his love, joy, and riches with him, He wanted to pour out blessings upon him. His love was a willingness to accept, cleans and forgive; to receive, revive and restore. All this love was bond within his heart; he could not express it, nor could his son experience it, until he returned. Yet, notice what happened when the son came to his senses and humbly returned to his father. All of the sudden the fathers love became gloriously experienced! The father saw him a long way off, and ran to meet him, and embraced him even in his filthy rags, even with the stench of the swine, and the father showed him with gifts, accepted him and called for a party!
Now why did this illustration bless me so much? Because, it showed me God’s heart of love towards me, even when I am in the pigsty. Just because I am not experiencing His love, Does not change the fact His love for me is unconditional. I now understand His love is manifested in different ways.
Oh what a blessing to know He longs for me to be with Him, He wants to pour out blessing on me, He is for me and cares for me, He wants to share His joy with me, and for me to experience Him forever and ever. AAHHH, Oh what a glorious thought.
Because I understand his love, now when I fall and my sin separates me from experiencing His love, I know I can humbly return to him, and began to experience the depths of His abundant love anew. He longs for reconciliation, He loves to revive and restore. His heart is so full of love for us, and Oh how He longs to pour it out, but to the grief of His heart, our pride makes it impossible for Him to lavish upon us the blessings He longs to give
No matter how much He wants to pour out love on us He cannot,
Lets say I really attracted to one of you, to where I am always thinking about you, I long to spend every moment of my day with you, give you tons of gifts, help you and be a part of your life. If I did this to anyone of you, it would freak you out, disturb you, and make you extremely uncomfortable. It would be wrong for me to love you this way w/o your consent, and your welcoming it. Likewise, God loves us this way, He thinks of us all the time, and longs to part of every detail of our life, and give us tons of gifts. But it would be wrong for Him show us this love, it's to extreme, no matter how much He wants to show us this He cannot tell we empty ourselves, surrender and let Him.
So God wants to give us all good things; power over sin and revelation of knowledge of Himself, so what are we waiting for? Let us strive to enter into this kind of intimate relationship with God!
Yet, If we say we want His love, if we are doing everything in our knowledge to remain right with him, and we still are not experiencing His love in all of it’s fullness, then what’s going on? why is God silent, hidden and seems light years away? This is not intimacy, is it?
God sees the big picture
So one of the questions from my e-mail is still hanging. We complain ‘we can't feel or see His love,’ so does this mean that I am in the pig-pin? I have felt like Job at times, Jobs friends were telling him, he must have committed a great sin, yet he had searched His heart and could not find anything. Likewise, I have not been able to find sin that could explain the eerie silence.
When we have an expectation of what God's love is and how it is experienced, and we are not experiencing this, we may start examining ourselves. We see bumper stickers that say "if you feel God is far away, guess who moved" so we keep trying and trying, and long to know Him more, yet we remain blind and weak spiritually.
In such times it is good to understand How God sees the big picture, God's ways and timing are so much different then the way we think and work. We feel that if we are in serious need and we cry out for help to a friend, and they don't come and help, but leave and come by a week later and ask us if we still need help, this would not be loving.
Very rarely has God given me something in the time frame I wanted it, I beg for comfort, and he may let me suffer for a week, before He somehow lifts the burden. When it comes to this, it very difficult for me, I wonder how could it be God's will to leave me week and helpless and not give me power over sin?
But sometimes God has an end goal in mind, His love wants the highest for us, so that could mean for Him to remove this outward sin we are dealing with, then we would never see the root of the problem. We are happy with shallow outward holiness, God has higher goals, also God uses each circumstance to teach us and reveal more of Himself to us, if we but start to look, and understand that no time is wasted for God, we could possible start maturing quicker.
Honesty knowing that God wants the highest for me, helps me understand way He does not give me what I ask for when I want it, He loves me to much, and I can indeed rest in this love knowing that in His timing and way He will give me even more then i ask for and wanted
How is God's love unselfish?
I have really wondered about this, What helped me to understand, is how the absolutely highest and best God can give us is Himself, and the only way He can give Himself to us is through a relationship, and a relationship requires love. and to love God is to deny ourselves, die to our own desires and will, trust Him and walk in righteousness. God requires this before we can experience the fullness of His love experiencally. God is does not make it this hard because He only wants the spiritual elite, but because it is the only way.
If I have a tiny apartment, that has tons of garbage, the carpet sticks and my dog messed on it countless times, my bed has springs sticking out, the couch is moldy, my TV and Fridge don’t work, and the paint is pilling off of my wall. Well, I am sure you can picture this. Well, lets say a nice man came to your house and said. I am to by you new appliances, bed and couch and TV and replace my carpet and paint. And that he would do it all for free, as a gift from his heart.
Think if for some crazy reason I said, yes I would love to have all the new stuff. But I want to keep in my house all I already have. Do you think this kind man would bring all his new stuff there? No, there is no room, and it is filthy. No, he would not unless, I got ride of the old, and cleaned house, only then would there be room.
Now make the spiritual switch. God wants to move into us, and fill us with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control. Yet there is no room for Him, and we are filthy, and He cannot fill us with His fullness tell we are clean
What is awesome about God, is though he can’t because of our filthy house, He still want to bring in the new (love, joy, peace, patience…) So much so, that if we invite Him, He will come in, endure our stench and take out the old, and go to the long hard process of cleaning house, that he can indeed fill us with the new and good.
Therefore, if we are lacking love, joy, peace, faithfulness, kindness and self-control and we ask, and ask yet, God never gives it to us, does that mean, God does not love us? No, it more like shows that we are still to dirty and filled up with junk. Yet, there is Good news! God is abounding in mercy, and is we ask Him to come in us, remove the junk and cleanse the house. He will! Then God will be able to answer our prayers for the fruit of the Spirit, for which we once asked, but never received.
What is God's love?
It is Sacrifical and giving (John3:16)
In First John 4:9-10 says “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (italics mine)
Not only that, Because of His great love He also desires to give us a great inheritance, and riches untold. We are unworthy of this, so He adopts us and makes us His children, and heirs with Him and Joint heirs with Christ, that we may partake of His glory, and dwell in His Kingdom.
Eph 2:5-7 “Even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus “.(italics mine)
It is accepting, not condemning
God’s position towards us is love, thus He always longs to accept us, heal us and make us new, He is full of compassion and tender mercy. Now we can forsake our mercy, by remaining in sin, God does not accept us while living in sin, put His heart is very tender, and He always is longing for us to repent and return to Him.
Sin always separates us from God in the sense that it brakes of our fellowship with Him, His life no longer can flow through us, but is imprisoned in our spirit, and we loose our love, joy, peace and hope. Sin is not worth it, if in sin we are making light the price of our redemption, and doing what He passionately hate. He says “how can two walk together if they are not agreed.” He also says “He knows Him, yet walks in darkness lies and the truth is not in him.” If we continue in rebellion, we can make Him anger, And He will discipline us, because He loves us to much to let us destroy ourselves. Yet even when we persist even after His chastening us, listen to His words to adulteress Israel “How can I give you up? How can I let you go? How can I destroy you? My heart is torn with in me, my compassion overflows.’ And even though His anger was burning, He said He is God and not a man” Hosea 11:8-11
Reconciling and healing
God is so about reconciliation! “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 18Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, 19that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.20Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. 21For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Cor 5:17-21
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. Romans 5:8-11
Also, For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity…thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity… For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” Eph 2:14-19
It is a affectionate love (Ps 139)
How can it be that He has chosen to be emotionally attached to us? To where everything we do effects how He feels and when we leave Him out His heart is crushed. He Chose to make Himself vulnerable and take the Highest risk, when He chose to love wretches like us, He endures the pain and grief and the suffering, holding on to the hope that we will return His love. He is always thinking about us and He wants to be apart of every detail of our life. The best way to understand the depth of his affection for us is to take a look at our attraction to the opposite sex. surely God wanted to paint us a picture of His affection for us, when he created us this way.
God love keeps us from and delivers us sin
The story of David and Abigail in 1 Samuel 25, is a beautiful story, one of my favorites. In which David, decided to get revenge, and God use Abigail to rebuke him. And because David had a tender heart He received the rebuke as the Lord’s lovingkindness which stopped him before he committed a great evil. Wow I love this story, you ought to read it!
We must also remember
God's is His commitment to do the highest for us despite of us, our misunderstanding and fails accusations is a price He is willing to pay in doing His best for us. Just like the child may scream at his father, “you hate me!” The father knows that what he is doing for the child is best, and that because he lacks wisdom, he could never understand now. So the father bares long with the child, and patiently endures while his child sees his love for him, as hate.
Remember His love always has the end goal in mind, and if pain is needed, He will use it. Lets trust Him therefore, He knows what He is doing, we cannot see the end result, He can. He is good, and knows what He is doing, and is for us, not against us. So we can surrender, and trust Him, and Oh, the peace which will flood our soul!!!
His Love is manifested to us like a…
A fathers love
A mothers love
A brothers love
and a friends love
A trainer or coaches love
Let just briefly take a look at the last one in this little list.
When we think of a coach, some can be pretty heartless, they want us to be in the best shape possible, this means they make us eat a special diet, he puts us through pain, stretching us, pushing us beyond our limit they seems to careless about our feeling comfortable, about our schedule and personal time, there job is to get us in shape and make us the best on matter the cost and sacrifice.
Indeed this is one aspect of His love! Our time on earth is like a boot camp for eternity, God promises us trouble and tribulation, it is part of our training, God ultimate goal while on this earth is not our comfort and pleasure, we have all of eternity to enjoy this, now is the time for the temporary discomfort, in-order that we may receive the eternal comfort.
Romans 8:17 [We are] heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. 18For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Yet we can’t just view God as a heartless drill sergeant, He is also like a kind, tender hearted mother, and like a passionate lover who is emotionally attached to us, and like a faithful friend, indeed His love is amazing!
God's love for us is the foundation for everything else so we must KNOW God loves us
This is the source of our peace, hope, Joy, Love and faith of our peace,
Our peace: because perfect love cast out all fear, we know we are in His hands, that He is committed to doing the highest for us, that He will work all things out for good, and that He is all powerful and nothing can separate us from His love. We can have total security in Him
Our hope: knowing He is our reward, our treasure which is so much greater then we could ever dream or imagine. We can deny ourselves the temporary pleasures and worldly gain, for the hope of eternal joy which God has for us in heaven. “but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For we were saved in this hope” Rom 8:23-24
Our joy flows from our hope, and just the fact that the almighty God, who dwells in inapproachable light, who is the king of kings, served by millions of angles, has affectionate love for me. That if we really think about it, it is overwhelming!
Our love: for in us dwells no good thing, He alone has agape love, and it is His love that must flow through us, the only way for His love to flow through us is for us to deny ourselves and totally surrender to Him, yet we will not do this if we don't truly believe He loves us
Our Faith: for who comes to Him must believe He is and He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him, agape love is all about giving, if we don't believe God is a rewarder, we cannot walk pleasing to Him.
