Its funny how the first thing we thing about when we think of God is love. When asked to define a characteristic of God we say that he is love, yet do any of us really understand this aspect of God? I think we want to believe it means that he loves us with this fluffy kind of love, but when you really look into it you begin to see that he loves us with an everlastingly perfect love. Most of us agree that when we are walking with God we feel loved, we feel close to him and we feel safe, and therefore we love him back. It is also interesting to note that we often love God the most when we feel his love the most. Therfore our love for the creator is most often times conditional. Whenever our world gets rocked we turn into two year olds and think God is being mean and doesn't love us.
But God says "abide in my love." Again I ask, what does this mean? Well when I hear the word abide I think of rest. So rest in his love. That sounds so peaceful, just to crawl into Gods lap and feel his love surround me. And thats really what it means, but how do we do that? How do we abide regardless of the circumstances?
God gives us promise after promise in the Bible. "Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you." "I have a plan for you declares the lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."
God is patient, he waits for us as we do our own thing. It says in Isaiah that God waitied in quietness. "This is what the Lord says 'I will remain quiet and look on from my dwelling place.'" An army was moving against Isreal. In my mind this would not have been the time for God to sit back and be quiet. But God was being patient with Isreal; he was waiting for them to turn thier eyes upon him and trust in him for delieverance.
Gods love is kind. I think this is the love we talk about the most but rarely acknowledge. When our day is hard, his love is the rainbow we see in the sky, or a smile from a friend, or a hug from a family member. I remeber that someone told me "anytime someone shows you love, that is God showing you love through that person." I think back to every time someone has written something nice to me or given me encouragement when felt down...Gods love is kind!
Now in Corinthians 13 it says that love is not jealous or boastful. However, since Gods love is perfect, he is jealous us of. God created us, he knows us perfectly and intimatly. When we fix our eyes on someone or something else he becomes jealous. When we become jealous we often say, "What does that person have that I don't?" God says, "I wish they could see that what they are running after has no lasting value."
God also boasts about us. The clearest picture we have of this is when God boasts about Job. Satan comes into God court after wandering across the world. God says, "Have you considered my sevant Job?" He brags about him saying, "Ther is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." See when God brags, he tells the truth. His bragging brings our best to light.
God also delights in us. When I think about that I think back to the passage that says, "he delights over us with singing." I think of a father dancing with his younger daughter or playing catch with his son and the joy in his face when we look up at him with innocent eyes.
God is not rude, he is not self-seeking, and he is not easily angered. I want to stop at the last one and define it more. God is not easily angered; but how can this be true when it says that God is a God of wrath? That is entirely true, however his anger and wrath don't come on the moment you first sin. Infact it says in Exodus 34:6 "The Lord is a commpassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness." In Psalms 30:5 is says "For his anger only lasts a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime." Gods anger is very real, but he does not become angry quickly.
God love keeps no record of wrongs. This is unbelievably true although often times impossible for us to understand. Romans 8:1 says, "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Once we place our faith in him, our sin is gone. Now this doesn't mean we never sin, but when we do God looks at us through the lense of Christs body. He knows we sin, but he doesn't tally our failures so that when we come back to him after walking away he says "well I don't know if I can forgive you, afer all you have done that 15 times already..." Its a hard concept to grasp, but as soon as we are forgiven, it is forgotten! He casts our sin as far as the east is from the west...which when you stop and thiink about that is infinatly far.
Gods love always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perserveres. Humanly it is impssible to protect the way God protects us. Humanly it is impossible for us to perserver the way God does after us.
So abide in his love, find rest and comfort in his perfect promise to love, teach and guide you.
"Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatestof these is love."
~Catie
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