Loving Like God
Loving Like God
What does it mean to love well?
We could start by brainstorming ideas about love, examples we've seen, or something we heard someone teach on one time. But anytime that we want to define something, we want to start with the Bible. God did, after all create the universe and is able to explain true reality to us. Not only that, but when it comes to love, God Himself gives us the example and definition because, as the Bible says, God is love.
Three aspects of God's love to notice are that it is life-giving, motivating, and disciplinary.
God's love is life-giving. We see this in 1 John 4:9-10 (or Ez 16) when God sends Jesus into the world, to die in our place for sins, so that we might live.
2 Corinthians 5:14-15 says that the love of God compels us; it controls us, it motivates us. He change us, gives us new life, and through this change and the Holy Spirit inside of us He motivates us to call others to experience this new life as well. The love of God also motivates us to live holy lives. We are loved by God, so live a holy life - that's the logic of Colossians 3:12ff.
God's love is also disciplinary. This is not a shift in tone from God, but is interconnected with these other aspects of God's love. He wants us to exprience true life, to grow in holiness, and sometimes that means that He needs to discipline us so that we won't continue in sin. God does this as a Father who is committed to us and wants what is good for us (Hebrews 12:3-11).
This is what the love of God is like. We are told to love others just as He has loved us (John 13:34). And so as we interact with others, we want to be speaking the word of life, motivate them toward good, and correct them when they are straying. This is a full-rounded love, a committed love that wants what is best for others according to God's description of what is best.
This applies not only on the individual level, but on the church level as well. We want to be bringing the life-giving word to people, encourage people, and correct people when necessary (according to the process in Matthew 18:15-20). All of this with the goal of growing to look more like God while we love like God.