Love and Knowing God
Ah, love is in the air. February is largely commemorated for 2 reasons, Black History and Valentine's Day. While both subjects are valuable to the Christian, this week I want to focus on the reality that love offers the modern Christian.
Hi, I'm Pastor Eli and I am the lead pastor at the Rifle Seventh-day Adventist Church. I want to invite you to think about someone that has shown you love. Think of their face. Think of their voice. Relish in it. Don’t bother hurrying through this post. Remember what that love was like. Love is so memorable.
If love were a person, that person would be Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches this basic truth. That Jesus was, and is, God made flesh. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The majority of the Christian world recognizes Jesus, full of grace and truth, as the incarnation of the ancient creator God. This matters because it’s the same author, John, who has this to say about who God is: “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” Read that again. John isn’t asserting that God loves, or that God is loving, John states God is Love.
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
In Spanish there are two ways of describing ourselves. One way is a self-description that transcends time or occasion. To say, “soy feliz” is to state that happiness is who I am. However, there is another way to self-describe. This other way is a temporary description. “estoy feliz” means that I am feeling happy right now. This slight nuance exists in various languages but not so in English. Translating both phrases into English produces the same literal result. “I am happy.” This applies to describing others as well. See where I’m going with this? 1 John 4:8 shares this ambiguity in English, but make no mistake, the author very much meant to communicated, “Love is who God is.” Remember that encouragement I made for you earlier. Relish in the love you have experienced because that is who God is. Every time you feel that warm and irreplaceable embrace from someone who genuinely cherishes you, every time your day is made a little brighter by a kind word from your partner, every time your heart swells as a toddling child or grandchild smiles at you with tender eyes, every time you accept love, you experience what God is like.
But friend, it’s not enough to experience the almighty. The crux of 1 John 4:8 is not that we might have a chance to encounter God—as valuable as that is. John condemns those who do not love, because they do not know God. It’s not enough to receive love. It’s not enough to babysit someone’s kids, you must have your own to know what it is to be a mother, a father. How do we grow to know God? How do we come to know Jesus Christ? At a minimum, we must love. If your deepest pursuit is to know Jesus, we must love. There is no workaround to this.
I want to clarify two things before we go. First, does this mean love is all I need to know God? Read the passage again. John does not say, “all those who love will know God, for God is love.” Notice that this is a very different statement. If I say, “whoever doesn’t start the race will not finish it.” Does that mean everyone who starts the race will finish it? No. Someone could stop partway through a course or be disqualified before even reaching the end. So here the Bible doesn’t teach us a sign of godliness, it teaches us a sign of ungodliness. Does that make sense? If you want to know God, you at least have to love. If you don’t love, you will not know Him.
I thank you for joining me on this little meditative Bible walk. I will again invite you to imagine, but this time, recall to your mind’s eye the face of someone you love. Hear again in your minds ear their voice, their laughter. Relish in that memorable love. That’s who God is.
-pastor eli