All About Love by David Nelson

Posted: 2008-12-31 12:08:58

All About Love     by David Nelson    (12-31-08)

God is all about love. Yes, He is about justice, life, death, future judgments, prophecies, spiritual gifts, healing, power, joy, praise, music, etc., but His highest attribute, His heart, His highest goals for man have to do with love for Him, love for others, and His love for us. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and strength (this is the first and great commandment), and you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself, upon these two commands hang all other commandments God has given us. God is love. If it were not for love for God and love for man all other commandments would be meaning less. (they all relate and depend on these two principles).

Yes, there is much to talk about concerning the economy of the world, winning the lost, surviving these last days, the end of this age, the coming of the anti-Christ, what we should do in our church gatherings with the Lord, revival, etc. But the Lord wants love to be in us and He wants us to know what love is and how to walk in it above all things. If we do not have love we are nothing, though we may have many revelations, prophecies, and give all we have to the poor, if we have not love we have and are nothing. Paul says after talking about spiritual gifts, “Yet, I show you a more excellent way (which is love).”  (I Cor. 12:31-13:1-3)

And here is the surprising thing, love is not what we think at first glance. We often think of love as deep feelings or emotions or things like this. (you love your spouse, you love someone, you love God with feelings and emotions and the like). Let me give a brief description of love that may not be as you would have first thought. (Actually I Cor. 13:4-7 describes love as how we treat people and how we think about people. Do we think negative or evil of them? Do we give them the benefit of the doubt? Are they guilty in our eyes before we have proven them guilty? (even our worldly, secular system says that people are innocent until they are proven guilty). Even if they are guilty will we forgive them and erase their wrongs?)

Are we kind to people, are we courteous with people, are we fair when others aren’t fair, are we courteous when others aren’t courteous, do we excuse people when they offend us and they don’t even ask to be excused? Do we forgive those that purposely hurt us and they don’t care about our forgiveness, do we give them the benefit of the doubt about their motives or appearances of wrong doing? (the benefit of the doubt means, can you think of the possibility that they didn’t mean what they did, or what appears as wrong might not have really been wrong in God’s eyes but only as we saw it? Maybe what appears to be wrong they didn’t mean, or they didn’t know it was wrong, or their motive in their heart was something different than we were able to see or understand). Also, even if we could prove their motives, intents, and actions were pure evil, we are to forgive them for wrong whether we imagined it or it was real. (we are to forgive friends, acquaintances, and enemies alike).

All this seems so impossible. We live in a time where the love of many is growing cold. There is more rudeness, lack of natural affections, distrust, hatred, anger, betrayal, bitterness all around us, and it could rub off on us and make us more cynical and feel what hope is there for love? Can I have any strength to do these ways of love?

The Lord has promised that He will teach us about love and give us the strength to live it. But when and how shall this be? “I am at work in you (says the Lord) both to desire and to do my good pleasure.” We must desire love and pray for it to reign in us, and then the Lord will guide our steps and show us what to do and put love in our hearts as time goes on. Cry out to Him for more love and see that what He wants may not be more feelings for others but things like patience with others. Long-suffering (patience) means suffering long with the imperfections of others. Forbearance means bearing with the faults of others. Love covers (or forgives or bears with) a multitude of sins (faults and weaknesses in others). Col. 3:12-14 says, “Put on the garment (of love), tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long suffering, forbearing one another (and loving your enemies), forgiving one another, for Christ has forgiven you of all you have done”, surely you can forgive others of the few things you see them do. “But above all these things put on love, which binds everything together in perfection.”

We are not able to do all this in ourselves but He can and will teach us. It is His character. He wants us to be like Himself. He would rather have us be big in love than big in prophecies, revelations, knowledge, big activities but being without pure love for the least of the brethren and to all our enemies. All these things are true teachings of the Scriptures and take a pre-eminence which we must se more clearly. This is our God. These are His ways for us and He wants us to be in this Holy Way that pleases His heart so much. Isn’t it interesting that this comes as the last word of 2008 and the first word of 2009? I did not plan it this way, it just came to me this Wednesday morning as a word to us all. I wish you all blessings in this coming new year!

*(To learn more about these things please see and read this book (Book page on our web-site), “Without Love We Are Nothing.” This is very rich with good teachings that will change our lives to be closer to the heart of God.)