Be Loving
Colossians 3:12-14
VIDEO: What is Love?
What is love? Apparently, people have many definitions of what love really is. But the fact of the matter is that God is the only one who can define what love really is. We may want to look at the way the world defines love. But in the end, we get a superficial answer. Nobody has an exact answer. As you saw in the video, there are many OPINIONS about what love is, but no one really can say.
But God can. Why? Because God is love.
GOD IS LOVE
1 John 4:8
God is love. Love is the basic essence of God. But you might look at this verse in Colossians and say that holiness is the essence of God.
Colossians 3:12
As a matter of fact, many preachers and teachers say that God is by definition holy. The essence of the substance of God is His holiness. But it actually says that we are “holy” and “loved”.
To be holy means to be separate. Or to put it another way, to be holy means that I have to be different. In relation to the people around me, I have to be different. But I am different because God is holy or different, and He loves me. So how are these words connected?
God is holy because He is loving. God is different and separate from every other thing that is worshiped because He is loving. Love is the basis for His holiness or His being different. God is not holy because of being God. God is holy because He is a God who is actually loving.
Other gods don’t love. They take. They demand. They look down and say: “Come up to me.” God loves. God gives. God shares and helps. Yes, He has authority, but His authority is based on the fact that He is love. God’s basic essence is love.
God is holy or different because God is love.
God gives judgment because God is love.
God shares with His servants what He plans to do because God is love.
God wants people to come to Him because God is love.
God lets people die in their sins unless they come to Him, because God is love.
GOD IS LOVING
Or to say it another way, God is not only love. God is also loving.
God is a different God because He is loving.
God dispenses judgment on those who don’t live loving lives because He wants to be loving.
God shares with His servants what He plans to do because God is loving.
God wants people to come to Him, and He was loving by giving us Jesus – His Son, as a way to come to Him.
God is loving because He provided a way to take care of our sin problem, so that we could come to Him.
Our problem is that we don’t know what love is. So of course, we have a problem with the way that God acts. We can’t understand God, because we don’t understand love – His most basic quality.
Paul said it this way:
Ephesians 3:18
So we are still exploring this love. As a matter of fact, I don’t expect you to fully understand God’s love today because I don’t completely understand it myself. I am still trying to understand God’s love in the way He treats me.
Sometimes I get it wrong, and I think God hates me. Sometimes I get it wrong, and I think that God is not there for me. Sometimes I get it wrong, and I think that God does not know the best way to love me and treat me.
I act like a child to a loving parent, a child who doesn’t understand everything that is going on.
GOD CALLS ME TO BE LOVING
But no matter where I am in my understanding of God’s love, God calls me to be loving to the people around me. I won’t fully understand that love, but the love I do understand, I have to start sharing.
Colossians 3:12-14
This is what these two verses are all about. How do I spend time loving others? Here are many examples:
Compassion
Patience
Forgiveness
Love is what puts all of these qualities together. Love is what it takes to be able to do all of these things that God asks.
So what is your biggest challenge today? What is the hardest way to be loving with other people? What is the hardest way to be loving with God?
I am different because I am called to be loving. God is love, and so He supplies me the power to be loving. I just have to learn where to apply this love? Which “love” appliance do I need to be?
Am I going to be sharing heat?
Am I going to be sharing food?
Am I going to be patient water cooker?
Am I going to be forgiving
