When we talk about God’s love we are essentially talking about God himself, for God doesn’t have love He is love 1 John 4:16. Therefore to know love is to know God himself, 1 John 4:8 points out that one can’t claim to know God if he doesn’t love. We only know God to the extent we know and experience His love in our lives. Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians was that they might know this love. We are inevitably brought to this question “How can we Love God?”

   So often times we have being told to love God and hence we spend most of our walk with God, trying to love Him, unfortunately most of the time God is depicted as an elusive being, playing hard to get, so we are constantly trying to reach out and touch Him. This misrepresentation of God alienates us from Him and further insulates us from receiving His Love.

   You are not in love if you are trying to love. Love has a way of winning us over effortlessly, melting our hearts over to the lover, breaking our defenses and bringing us to a place where we cant help but love. William Law in Wholly for God says “ Love needs no command to live its own life or be what it is, no more than you need bid wrath to be wrathful. And therefore when love is the spirit of your life it always live and work in love, not because of this or that, here or there, but because the spirit of love can only love where it is or goes or whatever is done to it ”

   The only way we can love God is to know and experience how much he loves us. When we see the love that God has for us, we naturally respond to God by loving Him and eventually loving our neighbor. Loving God is not something that we work at and produce on our own, it’s all a response. We love Him because He first loved us 1 John 4:19. Loving God is always a response.

   Our main preoccupation in the walk with God must be to know His love for us and not trying to love him. If you can begin to know and believe the love God has for you, your love for Him will amazingly grow and your whole life will be transformed effortlessly.  

   Often times the love God has for us is mistaken for human love. Most of what is referred to has God’s love is human love, hence believers are deprived of experiencing God’s love. You must realize that there is an infinite difference between God’s love and human love. In human love the lover loves because of who the beloved is. But God loves because he is love. There is no amount of striving and religious performance that can make God love you more than He does now. You are loved now and forever, you must settle and abide in this truth.

   Quieten yourself before God and think about nothing but His love for you and open your heart to Him. Listen to His voice of love. Allow his love to flow into you. God can’t wait to lavish his love upon you.

                                     Benny Musonda

 

 KNOW THE LOVE OF GOD

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