While sifting through old files on a hard drive recently, I found a 10-minute string of old voicemail messages from Wyatt and Seth when they were 3 and 4 years old. My sons would call me while I was at work or away on a trip. “Daddy, I love you,” a tinny, young voice crackled. “When you get home, can we go for a bike ride?” My favorite was the message when Wyatt simply repeated, in staccato fashion, “I-love-you-Daddy. I-love-you-Daddy. I-love-you-Daddy.” Tears came as I remembered those beautiful days, tears born of intense love.
When you get to the core of things, it’s true that what we all really need, what we’re all longing for, is love. Scripture confirms this human longing and tells us that this unquenchable desire is simply another expression of the fact that we’re all longing for God. “God,” the apostle John says, “is love” (1 John 4:8). It’s not only that God enacts love. Rather, God is love. God is “filled with unfailing love” (Exodus 34:6). God defines love. He concocted the whole notion of it. It’s an expression of His very being.
If we’re strangers to love, we’re strangers to God. “Anyone who does not love does not know God,” John insists (1 John 4:8). But if our love is strong and true, it means we’ve received this gift from our Creator.
Poet and novelist Wendell Berry says it beautifully: “I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God.”
NLT 365-day reading plan passage for today: Acts 2:14-40
More:
Read 1 John 4:16. What does it mean to “live in” God? And what connection do you think love has to do with this?
Next:
How has God revealed His love to you? In what areas of your life has love’s absence wounded you? How might God’s love speak into those wounds?
tom felten on October 8, 2013 at 9:00 am
Winn, I still have some recorded messages that I received at work from my boys when they were young. Precious messages from the past! Long ago, Jesus came to fully reveal and proclaim God’s love for us. When I consider the cross, there is truly no greater love than for Him to lay down His life for us—His friends, His children, His loves (John 15:13).
amille0123 on October 8, 2013 at 12:39 pm
I encourage everyone to examine themselves and determine if we really love GOD. It is easy and natural to LOVE someone who is dear to us (wife, husband, mom, dad ,son, daughter) without hesitation. Do we love GOD in that way?
Our LOVE for GOD is proven in John 14:15
If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
We must strive everyday by renewing our minds with his HOLY WORD, expect and accept the transformation of our life, and most important continue to walk in HIM. (OBEDIENCE)