GOD'S HOLY LOVE: INTIMATE

Recently I’ve written two blogs on God’s holy love guided by two Hebrew words for love found in the Old Testament: hesed meaning steadfast, loving kindness and covenant loyalty you can depend on, and aheb meaning practical love reflecting personal commitment and responsibility.  God’s holy love is both steadfast and dependable yet also practical and responsible.

God’s holy love is of a third kind found in the New Testament we may know best, agape.  God’s agape love is unconditional and self-giving, sacrificial and other-centered.  It is more than friendship, compansionship, family love (phileo). It is love seeking ever increasing intimacy with God.  Agape love is deeper, purer, and transforming.  It is the kind of love that is pure and purifies when implanted in the hearts of those whose obedient faith seeks the infilling of the Holy Spirit.  It is obedient love  given over to God and others living life in the likeness of Christ to the glory of God.

Hesed, aheb, and agape are three words used in the Bible to capture the essence of God’s love and may be used as descriptors of God’s nature, the essence of his holy love.  His love for us is steadfast, dependable, and never changing.  It fails not.  His love is personal and intimate.  He cares for you and me.  In response to His love, he desires our love in return to him, for him, and to others.  His love is unconditional, other-centered, self-giving, and sacrificial. 

Amazing love how can it be

That Thou, my God, should die for me?

- Charles Wesley

O Love that will not let me go,

I rest my weary soul in thee

That in thine ocen depths its flow

May richer, fuller be.

- George Matheson

LOVE REVEALED IN US

It is often said that Jesus puts a face on God.  Catherine Baird (1895-1984), captures this in her lovely hymn, O Love, Revealed In Christ -

O Love, revealed on earth in Christ,

In blindness once I sacrificed
Thy gifts for dross; I could not see

         But Jesus brings me sight of Thee.

O Love, invisible before,

I see Thee now, desire Thee more;

              When Jesus speaks Thy word is clear;

I search his face and find Thee near.

  

O Love, forever claim my eyes!

       Thy beauty be my chosen prize;

I cast my load on timeless grace

              That my free soul may run the race.

I come to Thee with quiet mind,

         Thyself to know, Thy will to find;

In Jesus’ steps my steps must be,

I follow him to follow Thee.

A child asks “What does God look like?”  The parent replies with stories of Jesus so the child grows to understand that God is love and looks like Jesus.  Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God brings clarity about his nature and his holy love for us. 

Speaking of Jesus, the Apostle Paul writes to the Colossians (1:15 & 19), He is the image of the invisible God . . . for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,”  and in writing to the Ephesians (3:19) Paul explains why, that you may be filled to the measure of the fullness of God.  In other words, the child wondering what God looks like gets a good idea just by seeing the fullness of God in us. 

Thanks be to God!