We love, because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19) The main objective of this cyber Bible study is to better understand the way God loves us so we can imitate Him in the way we love others.
Anyone who has ever raised a child knows that they are not born with the ability to love (agape) like God. As toddlers, none of my nine children exactly exemplified patience, kindness or selflessness. I was reminded of this truth watching my adorable Grandson, Mikey grab a toy right out of his cousin’s hand and sweet little Bella, in return, rake her little fingernails across his face leaving a nasty red scratch. We’re all born sinners but being made in the likeness of God, have the capacity to grow to be like Him. Children learn Godly attributes of love through training, discipline and our own imperfect attempts to model it: They love because we first loved them!
In my quiet time today, I was amazed to see that even Jesus learned to love in the same we should; that is, by recognizing and experiencing the Father’s love for us, and emulating it.
“Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. (John 15:9)
“… and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26)
Jesus couldn’t have made it any clearer that this is for us as well when He said “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” (John 13:34).
Paul’s letter to the Corinthians was written to clearly define love and make it easy (Ha!) for us to apply the scriptures to our daily lives.
4 Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,
5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,
6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8a Love never fails…
These are the verses we will be discussing phrase by phrase over the next weeks. The older I get, the more I realize how far short I fall in loving others. I also see how much more I need to grow in my understanding of how much God loves me so that I can better love those around me.
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December 13, 2010 at 10:22 am |
I’m reading an awesome book called Crazy Love by Francis Chan. I just finished a chapter in which he talked about love, and quoted these verses from 1 Corinthians. Afterward, he gave a challenge to take the phrase “Love is patient” and substitute your name for the word “love.” (eg “Laurel is patient…”) Do it for every phrase in the passage. Francis Chan says, “By the end, don’t you feel like a liar? If I am meant to represent what love is, then I often fail to love people well.” I feel like a liar when I put my name in here, but it also makes the verse more real to me.