To ‘LOVE and to be LOVED’

The hallmark of Christian family and community is love.

John 15:12: My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

Love is a reality only because God is the origin, cause, and purpose of all things. John tells us that God IS love (1 John 4:8). He doesn’t simply demonstrate it or is a good example of love.

Whilst love leads us to care for one another and expresses itself in kindness, that is an incomplete understanding of love. Such a human understanding often results in our indulgence of ourselves and others. God “loves me just as I am” is true but not fully true. God loves us with a blazing strength and purity that has a determination to redeem, restore, renew, and bring us to holiness and righteousness.

His love is accepting but it’s also challenging and confronting.

When we say, “God is a God of love” we often imply that His love precludes him ever acting in wrath or justice, in a way that disciplines, or in any way that does not fit our human conceptions of love.

“God’s love is both holy and infinite, which means that all His actions are loving, even when we cannot perceive them to be so” (Wilkin, 2018)

To love and to be loved in our families and communities, therefore, is to know how the Triune God loves us in all the fullness of what that love means, and to reflect that to one another.

It involves care, kindness, and protection. It involves grace and support. It involves challenge and discipline.

“Let all that you do, be done in love.” (1 Cor 16:14)

 

Blessings
Brian

 

 


Reference:

Wilkin, J. (2018, June 11). The Kind of Love that marks a Christian. https://www.crossway.org/articles/the-kind-of-love-that-marks-a-christian