Loving God

 

The Bible says God is Love.

 

He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

1 John 4:8

 

Not merely that God has love, or God is loving, although both of those are true, but He is love. Love is the essence of His being. It also says humans were made in His image.

 

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Genesis 1:26, 27

 

So if we are in His image, we must be a bit like Him! He has massive intelligence, knowledge and wisdom: we have a comparatively small amount of intelligence, knowledge and wisdom. He has unimaginably tremendous power: we have a small amount of power. So on this principle, when it comes to love, the greatest, most intense feeling of love we can experience and give/receive - man and woman to each other, parent to child, friend to friend - will only be a tiny fraction of the quality and quantity of God’s love.

 

Since God’s essence is love, it therefore follows that when He created the universe and everything in it, the prime purpose was to express love. This is His nature. He didn’t think,

 

“I’ll make a load of things and then decide which ones to love.”

 

The Bible says God doesn’t change - He always acts in the same way.

 

"For I am the LORD, I do not change…

Malachi 3:6

 

He is always true to His nature. So everything He does is from 100% raw, passionate love.

 

It follows then, since He made us in His image, He expects the same from us. Primarily, he made us in His image so He could lavish His love upon us; and in return expects us to lavish love on Him. So in the passage at the start of this page, Jesus said the most important commandment is that we should love Him with all of our being. Why? Because that is what He made us for - to receive His love and to give Him our love in response.

 

We love Him because He first loved us.

1 John 4:19

 

How can we give Him love, though? Certainly we can demonstrate that we love Him by living the lives He expects, and His standards are very clearly taught in the Bible. He hates lying, stealing, cheating, etc., and expects us to avoid such practices. Is this enough, though? How can we love Him? Let me put it even stronger: how can we make love to Him? A married couple can make love to each other in various ways - kissing, cuddling, caressing and in sexual union, as well as in the way they act toward each other in their daily lives, of course. But we can’t see God; He doesn’t walk with us in a physical body that we can cuddle. So what can we do?

 

Notice that Jesus goes on to say that the second greatest commandment - to love our neighbour as ourselves - is like the first one. In the following shapes, is shape 1 like shape 2?

 

 

1. ▲  2. ♥

 

No, it isn’t! What about these two:

 

1. ▲  2.▲

 

Yes, of course they are! Why is shape number one like shape number two in the second set? Because it is the same. So likewise, if obeying the second commandment is like obeying the first one, it must be the same. In other words, when we love our neighbour, we really are actually loving God. What I do to my neighbour, I do to Him. Therefore, the Bible says:

 

If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?

1 John 4:20

 

Who is my neighbour? The parable of the Good Samaritan teaches us that it is whoever we happen to meet.

 

But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Then Jesus answered and said: "A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead… But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion... So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?" And he said, "He who showed mercy on him." Then Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."

Luke 10:29-30, 33, 36-37

 

I was visiting my daughter and son-in-law in Uganda in 2015, and he asked me to preach a couple of times in the Church where he is pastor. I am not a preacher, but I said I would happily share my experience with the folk there, and the first talk was about the incredible miracle God did for me between October 2014 and February 2015. However, the second one was on the topic of this page, and wanting to illustrate the point I have just made, I primed Gill, my first wife (who is now with the Lord), to help me with a mini-drama. So I got her to join me part-way through the talk, and hold the microphone for me while I demonstrated something with my Bible using both hands. When we’d finished, she ‘spotted’ some chalk on my jacket (that I had carefully put there before the service from the ledge below the school blackboard - the service was held in the school hall), and started brushing it off with hard slaps.

 

I complained,

 

“Stop hitting me, you’re hurting me!”

 

She said,

 

“I’m not hitting you, I’m knocking the chalk off your jacket.”

 

I then said,

 

“Yes, but while I’m inside it you’re hitting me as well - whatever happens to the jacket, happens to me!”

 

Where is God? Yes, I know He is everywhere, but where is He specifically? The Bible says:

 

Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

1 Corinthians 3:16

 

Paul said that Jesus Christ is in you…

 

Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.

2 Corinthians 13:5

 

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Galatians 2:20

 

…and His prayer for everyone...

 

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

2 Corinthians 13:14

 

…is that we should experience three things:

 

1. The Grace of Jesus Christ (everything we have is the result of His free gift and nothing to do with anything we can do).
    

2. The Love of God (the nature of the Father, which is what this page is all about).
    

3. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit (He lives within us in order to have a non-stop, two-way communication with us).

 

When a person comes to Jesus Christ for forgiveness on the basis of His sacrifice that He made, not only are those sins forgiven, but God comes to live inside him/her.

 

…that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith…

Ephesians 3:16–17

 

In fact…

 

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

2 Corinthians 5:17

 

…he or she is a very different person – a new creation.

 

In the same way that anything done to my jacket while I am wearing it is therefore done to me, so anything done to a Christian is also done to God. So when the Bible says…

 

And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men,

Colossians 3:23

 

…it is not meaning we should pretend we are doing things to the Lord and then God will count it as if it was done to Him; but that what we are doing to others we really are doing it to Him and we should remember this and act accordingly.

 

But the vine said to them, 'Should I cease my new wine, which cheers both God and men, and go to sway over trees?'

Judges 9:13

 

How can wine cheer God? God is a Spirit, and therefore has no use for physical food and drink.

 

God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

John 4:24

 

However, if He is living within us, then everything we experience, He experiences.

 

What about those who have not come to Christ and therefore do not have the Holy Spirit living inside them, though? This brings me to the second illustration I used during my talk in Uganda. Unfortunately I didn’t have a photo of Gill, with me, so I asked them to pretend the piece of paper I was holding was her photo. I then threw it down on the floor and stamped on it.

 

“Would you expect me to do that to her photo?”

 

I asked them?

 

“No,” they said, shaking their heads.

 

I then picked it up and kissed it.

 

“Would you expect me to do that?”

 

“Yes,”

 

…they nodded, smiling happily. Why? What difference does it make what I do to Gill’s photo? Stamping on it or kissing it has absolutely no effect on her whatsoever. So why does it matter?

 

In the Middle East it is not uncommon to see people burning the American flag - certainly during the Iraq war and in its aftermath. When Saddam Hussein was brought down, one of the first things the people did was to pull down his statues, throw their shoes at them and kick them. Why? Because it is an expression of intent:

 

“What I am doing to this representation of you I would like to do to you!”

 

I wouldn’t have stamped on Gill’s photo, but I might have kissed it because she was the most important person in the world to me and I loved her. If she was not with me in person, then I could do to her photo what I would have liked to have done to her, and by this means make an outward expression of my feelings toward her.

 

At this point I must divert slightly from the topic to say that after Gill went to be with the Lord in September 2019, He was very gracious to me, first by releasing me from the mind-numbing grief I felt at her departure (described here), and then by bringing me into a relationship with Suzannah, whom I married in October 2020 (video here). I knew that Gill would want me to have someone in my life to love and care for me, just as I would have wanted that for her had it been the other way around. It has been one of the most amazing miracles of my life, and I can honestly say the love Suzannah and I feel for each other is a source of tremendous joy for us both, and we are extremely grateful to God for bringing us together in this way and making the tail-end of our lives so full of happiness and contentment.

 

We have already seen that we are made in the image of God. Even though that image is distorted by our sin, nevertheless there is still some of His likeness present in everyone. We’ve seen that the strongest of His characteristics is love; and in humans the strongest, most powerful motivating force we have is also love, because we are in His image. It drives us to extraordinary lengths, and leads many even to give up their own lives, sometimes in the most appalling ways, for the sake of their loved ones.

 

People will also go to extraordinary lengths to satisfy their personal selfish desires, of course: this is self-love, and a distortion or an abuse of their faculty of love.

 

Therefore whoever we meet, no matter how lovely or hateful they are toward us, they are to some extent in God’s image; and what we do to them, we do to God. Whether we realise it or not, we make an expression of our intent toward God in the way we deal with everyone we contact.

 

…I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.' "Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'

Matt 25:34–40

 

The implications of this are profound.

 

On the negative side, there are Islamic extremists, ISIS for example, torturing and killing men and women under the illusion that they are pleasing God by so doing; when in reality it is God they are treating in this way. Imagine the shock of a suicide bomber, having blown himself and many others to pieces, thinking that this guarantees him a privileged place in the next life, when in reality the moment He stands before His Creator, as we all must do at the end of our lives, he experiences the full force of His wrath and anger at what he has done to Him!

 

"Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.' "Then they also will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?' Then He will answer them, saying, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.'

Matthew 25:41–45

 

Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.

1 Corinthians 3:16–17

 

On the positive side, what was God’s purpose in creating the universe and inhabiting it with human beings? It was in order for Him to love them and for them to love Him. This is the prime purpose of our existence and will be our occupation for the whole of eternity. However, we don’t have to wait until the hereafter in order to give God our love: we can do it here and now! Since God dwells in all those who have been changed into His sons and daughters through the sacrifice of Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit, and His image is in every human on the planet, we can express our love to Him - make love to Him, if you please - in the way we interact with each other.

 

In other words, we can have Heaven on Earth - right now! Don’t misunderstand me here, though. It is obvious that because of the selfish and/or misguided actions of a vast number of people, there will always be disaster, suffering and misery around us: and while a certain amount of human suffering is due to ‘natural disasters’, by far the vast majority is the result of ‘man’s inhumanity to man’. So in that sense it can never be ‘Heaven on Earth’ until Jesus returns and everything is restored back to God’s original design. However, we can certainly fulfil our primary purpose now, just as well as we will be able to do in eternity - by loving our neighbours we love God.

 

Regarding ‘natural disasters’ it is my personal opinion that even these are the responsibility of mankind. I understand there is scientific evidence that every sound has an infinitesimally small physical effect on the molecules of the objects within hearing distance. There may be a hint of this in…

 

Then Joshua wrote these words in the Book of the Law of God. And he took a large stone, and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the LORD. And Joshua said to all the people, "Behold, this stone shall be a witness to us, for it has heard all the words of the LORD which He spoke to us. It shall therefore be a witness to you, lest you deny your God."

Joshua 24:26-27

 

We all know that a sound at the right pitch and intensity can break a wine glass. Therefore the accumulative effect of sounds of suffering, etc., is enough to disturb the fabric of planet Earth such that it too is torn apart with earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. If this is the case it could explain why Jesus would say these disasters would increase toward the time of the end: a massively increasing population also massively increases the amount of pain and suffering, which then triggers them. Additionally, there is enormous conflict throughout the animal kingdom, which also is the result of the fall of man. This too could contribute to the negative effect on Earth.

 

…the foundations of the earth are shaken. The earth is violently broken, the earth is split open, The earth is shaken exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall totter like a hut; its transgression shall be heavy upon it, and it will fall, and not rise again.

Isaiah 24:18–20

 

In the eternal ages all of this will be restored to God’s original design, thus removing the cause of natural disasters altogether. I am not saying this is definitely the case, but simply proposing it as a possible theory, which seems logically likely to me.

 

We see in the Bible that the act of kissing is actually an act of worship:

 

Now they sin more and more, And have made for themselves molded images, Idols of their silver, according to their skill; All of it is the work of craftsmen. They say of them, "Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves!"

Hosea 13:2

 

All the commentators I checked say a similar thing regarding this verse. Typical examples are:

 

Kissing was an act of homage in the East, done upon the hand or the foot, the knees or shoulder. It was a token of divine honour, whether to an idol (1 Kings 19:18 and here,) or to God Psalm 2:12. It was performed, either by actually kissing the image, or when the object could not be approached, (as the moon) kissing the hand Job 31:26–27, and so sending, as it were, the kiss to it. In the Psalm, it stands as a symbol of worship, to be shown toward "the" Incarnate "Son," when God should make Him "King upon His holy hill of Sion."

(Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible)

 

…kissing is used for the worship of the Son of God, Psalm 2:12.

(John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible)

 

They kissed the calves, in token of the adoration of them, affection for them, and allegiance to them, as theirs. Thus we are directed to kiss the Son, to take him for our Lord and our God.

(Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible)

 

So when we recognise that God is living within a person, then kissing them becomes literally an act of worship to Him. For a husband and wife this means every time they kiss each other, they are kissing God and God is kissing them. When they make love to each other, they are making love to God and He to them. Whatever they do to and for each other, they are doing to and for God. This must be the case, at the very least for a Christian couple, because God dwells in them, and what happens to them happens to Him. What an amazing privilege marriage is, to enable a couple to express their love for God physically in this way.

 

Surely our marriage relationships would be transformed if we were to realise the reality of this? And act as though we believed it? Would I really talk to God the way I talk to my wife sometimes? If God said He wanted to watch a different programme on TV when I wanted to watch my favourite team playing football, would I deny Him and insist on viewing the match?

 

Sadly there are many for whom marriage is not an option for one reason or another; but while certain expressions of love are therefore impossible (sexual relationships are solely reserved for husband and wife, for example) loving the people they meet becomes transformed when they realise by doing so they are literally giving love to God and receiving it from Him.

 

Married or not, this is the case for every one of us: every encounter with another human being is another opportunity to ‘make love to God’. Some people find it difficult to receive help (whatever form that may take) from other people; but in reality to refuse what others offer to us is the same as refusing it from God! One could apply this to every human situation. Surely all our human interactions would be transformed if we were to realise the reality of…

 

Christ in you, the hope of glory

Colossians 1:27

 

…and live as though we believed it?

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