God is Love
Has it ever occurred to you that there are four levels of love, each one higher than the other?
First, there is the love that we harbour in our hearts for those who loved us first. Probably our parents are the pivot, so to speak, of this love. Without them we possibly would never have understood the meaning of true love. It was their unselfish devotion by day and by night, through joys and sorrows, that taught us how to respond to love.
“This is My commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you.” John 15:12.
Next, there is the love we feel toward those persons who are lovable. This group includes our friends”all the people who appeal to our intellect and our tastes. Some of us would consider many as belonging to this group. Others may tend to be exclusive and allow only a select few to enter the portals of this second level of love”the level of kindred souls.
“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” 1 John 4:16.
But then we must move to a higher level”and that is love for “the least” of them. This is an idealistic yet practical love, and it reaches all who have a need. It is love for those who are hungry, thirsty, and in want of spiritual help. There is no superficial stardom connected with loving on this higher level, for it is not extended with self-glory as a goal. Its only reward comes from knowing that you are a part of the gospel commission.
There is one more-exalted love. Few of us have grown enough to give of this rare and glorious love. Such love found perfect fulfillment on a cross at Calvary. It is love towards our enemies.
People who have given up on love probably agree with the words to the song: Don’t put your faith in love, my son, my father said to me. I fear you”ll find that love is like the lovely lemon tree. Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet, but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.”
Many people feel that way. “Love is bitter,” they say, because they have been used or abused. But there is a love that is sweet: “God is love.”
The world wants to turn John”s phrase around. “Love is God,” they say, and seek love as the highest good. But John did not say, that “love is God.”
“God is love,” he said. The author, Frederick Buechner wrote, “To say that love is God is romantic idealism. To say that God is love is either the last straw or the ultimate truth.”
The last straw. Yes, for some it is. They have looked for love in all the wrong places and have no other place to turn. But when they give themselves to God, as He is made real and personal in Jesus, they find the real love they have been looking for all their lives.
God is not indifference, abandonment, and abuse, my friend; God is love.
The life of Jesus is our supreme example of this love. He loved all classes of men. The tired, the lonely, the depraved – but, most blessed of all, He loved even His enemies. He regarded them as brothers, and His wounded heart ached when He saw them submitting to evil. He was crucified that they, too, might be saved. Friend, this love is a healing stream for all nations in these last days. Are you and I in it?
Amen
Xavier Chelliah, Canada