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“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” -John 4:8
We, Christians or not, do not know God. Because if we did really know God, we would desire nothing more then God himself. We say that “God is love,” but we don’t act like He is. We continuously seek love from anything other than the ultimate source. Yes, there are many things that provide us satisfaction. However, our need to love and be loved never ends. As we’ve all experienced, the “fix” we receive from things like relationships, success, gaining respect, or the goods we exchange for our money never lasts. We’re always left searching for more. The need we have for love is unsatisfiable. But if “God is love,” and He is eternal, why do we continuously choose something else?
I’ve been pondering this question myself the last two weeks. I would say that “God is enough for me,” but looking backwards I know that my life has not been a testimony to that statement. I can see that there has been many times that I’ve taken hold of temporary affections rather than turning to God. In fact, there has been times that I’ve held on to the those things tightly when I knew I should let go. I didn’t believe that what God promised me was better than what I had provided myself. But why? Why do we do that?
The only answer I can come up with is that we don’t actually know God. Either we think we know him, or we have avoided him entirely. Either way, we don’t know God. Christians claim to know Christ like we might claim to know our neighbors. We wave to one another in passing, we know each others occupations, or summer plans, but we don’t really know our neighbors. There’s also the neighbor who never acknowledges anyone on their street. They can be compared to non Christians who avoid God, and like subjects. Just like our neighbor who avoids us can’t possibly know us, non Christians who avoid God can’t possibly know God.
Speaking of knowing God, let’s talk about love, shall we? What exactly is love? Yeah, “love” is a concept we’ve all been trying to define for a very long time now, but I’m going to go ahead and define love as “any action or choice made for the purpose of benefiting someone or something other than yourself.” Love is 100% selfless; when your action is done for your benefit, you are no longer acting in love. The bible says that “God loves us unconditionally.” What does that mean? “Unconditionally” means that regardless of the situation or circumstances God’s love for us stands the same. He cannot be swayed to love you any more or less because God’s love is perfect love.
Hypothetically speaking, if you had experienced perfect full and eternal love do you think you would go searching for love from another source ever again? Maybe you would search, but the love you would find would never compare to the perfect love you had experienced. If “God is love” and we turned to him for our love needs, I believe that we would not only be fully satisfied and secure in who we are, but we would also bring others to desire the love of God as well. How? Because, if we understood the love that God has for us, than we would want nothing less than to share this selfless love with other people. And when people experience pure selfless love, they will crave that love forever. When they learn that the love you have or them is due to the love you have in your relationship with God, they will want to have that relationship with God too.
(You’re about to read the breakdown of life, love, God and our purpose, bare with me):
The truth though is that God, who is love, created us. Therefore we were created by love. Our purpose? Our purpose to live a life glorifying our creator. How does one go about glorifying God you ask? Guess. By loving him, and by loving other people. How does loving other people bring glory to God? Because if “God is love,” then by loving other people, we are in fact, revealing God to them. By revealing God and his love to others, He is being glorified. This brings us to my concluding thought, which is that “we don’t actually know God:” If the very purpose of our lives to love God and love people, how can we carry out our purpose if we don’t really know God? …Because If we don’t know God, than we cannot understand love. And without understanding the fullness and eternity of the love of God, we cannot live out our purpose. If we don’t live out our purpose, what then is our life?
So again I ask the question: if God is love, and He created us out of love for the purpose of loving, then why are we not running to Him? Why are we not seeking him first in all that we do? Why do we live our lives trying to create our purpose rather than living to fulfill the purpose our creator intended for us? We either 1) do not know God well enough to understand the weight of His love for us, or 2) we’ve heard of this “loving God” but we don’t trust that He is enough for us. But what happens when our bodies fade away with the rest of the temporary satisfactions we hold so tightly to? If God is eternal, and our spirit is eternal, we should seek what is eternal alone. What are we doing?! If we really really knew God, we would give our lives to be in his presence.
“But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you search for him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you face trials, and all these things have happened to you, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice. For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the promises He has made with your forefathers.” -Deuteronomy 4:29-31
“You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed.” -Joshua 23:14
*** In order to be fully funded, I need to raise $450 in 12 days! Help me by supporting at the link on the left, “Support me”, or by sharing my blog with friends looking to help or tithe. Thank you! ***
