God is Love
I am sure that we have all heard of The Beatles who were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in the 1960’s. The Beatles are the best-selling band in history, with estimated sales of over 600 million records worldwide. They have had more number-one albums on the British charts and sold more singles in the UK than any other act. One of the Beetles songs is titled –"All You Need Is Love" and was released as a non-album single in July 1967. It was written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. They wrote the song with no real experiences or any reasoning as to why they wrote it. We need to ask the question – Are the Beatles right to say – All you need is love?
One day in 1981 our future King, Prince Charles, officially announced his engagement to the beautiful, 19-year-old Lady Diana Spencer who became his former wife. Sadly, we know how it all turned out, Princess Diana was killed in a motor car accident, it launched a thousand newspaper pages of news. Upon making the announcement, the couple duly submitted to an interview with the media. One of the reporters while leading up to a question, asked Diana, “And I suppose, in love?” Diana replied, “Of course!” Out of Charles’s mouth popped a very philosophical quote: “Whatever ‘in love’ means.”
Many have asked the question did Prince Charles really love Diana?
In the modern day in which we live, love is something that is being greatly abused. There are many children growing up in dysfunctional families, some brought up with a single parent, others with abusive parents. Often if you sought to help some of those children or get close to them, they will emotionally shut down, and disallow you to get close. Why because they have been hurt, and do not want to be hurt again. Deep down all these children want love but live in fear of being hurt.
Consequently when these children grow up they will have a desire to get married, but because of their past experiences, as soon as they meet a difficulty, the hurt they experienced when young rises to the surface, and then we hear there is a divorce. Sadly this chain of events is the result of these young people not having experienced true trustworthy love.
We know that our children and grandchildren seek after love. If they fall or if they feel uncomfortable in a strangers company, they will run to their parent, or grandparents with hands held out wanting to be picked up to be giving love and reassurance, every one of us has the capacity to love, and want to be loved. So what is true love?
Remember God created each one of us, He built us to love. How can we know what true love is – what do we need to know and do to display love. The bible tells us that God is Love, so let us explore the meaning of true love, God’s love.
There are three types of love mentioned in the bible, in the Greek they are – Eros (erotic) – Philos (brotherly) and Agape (Godly-spiritual)
There is Eros love (Greek) – Erotic love which can be a selfish love – where there is emotional attraction
Then there is Philos love (Greek) – It’s about companionship, loyal friendship like between two brothers.
And the third type is Agape love (Greek) – this is God’s divine special love, God and Jesus are spiritual beings (Jesus would have experienced the Philos type love while on earth when He became man) But Agape love is a spiritual love, a love which we can only live out with Gods Spirit living and working inside of us.
God’s love is an extraordinary and special love; it is not like any of the two other types of love that we experience here on earth, which are subject to misuse, if we do not have Jesus living in us.
In 1 John 4:16 we read this short phrase of three words which is so loaded with power and meaning - God is love
Jesus is the greatest example for displaying what true love is. He showed true love, a great example is all the wonderful miracles of healing, He also shows and gives true love today, and we can know His help and guidance every day of our lives. Jesus showed us the ultimate cost and example of true love; He gave up His life for all mankind. I reflect on the costly step Jesus took, Jesus came from heaven a place of love, purity and peace. He came down to the earth as a baby, the earth was and still is a place full of evil, deserving Gods punishment because of what was happening.
We may all know the famous verse in John 3 verse 16 – which reminds us how great God’s love is. It says “For God so loved the world He sent His only son into the world. He then allowed His own beloved son to be killed and hung on a cross. Jesus was willing to pay the price each one of us should receive for the sins we have done. When we celebrate Easter, we remember that after three days Jesus rose up out of the grave and is alive today. Jesus proved He had power over death, by coming back to life. All we have to do is acknowledge to Him that He died to pay our sins, and ask for forgiveness, and ask Him into our lives, and then we can have the assurance that we are a child of God. We read in verse 1 of 1 John 3 - See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!
I would like to tell you what I experienced at my church about 40 years ago. I was in a special church service in my church back home. During the service the preacher asked everyone to go and pray for someone else in the congregation. So I walked across the aisle to a Christian gentleman stood opposite to where I was seated, we had never met before. After a few moments, the Christian gentleman said to me “You are going to experience much more of God’s love”. That prophecy has come true in my life because I have experienced many, many examples of God showing me His great love, guiding me and helping me when I find myself in difficulty, sometimes when I did not deserve it, and at times being able to display Gods love. Because I have Gods love living in my heart He gives me the desire to show Gods love to people I meet, people will sense and feel Gods love, they often want to talk with me, because of God’s love, my heart is open to them, to listen to their needs and often to encourage them. How I thank God for His love for me.
What happens when we experience Gods love in our life? You will meet many people who are very kind and loving, why is that? It is first that the nature of love is in each one of us, but those people that are loving have already experienced love and want to love others. That is why Christians have such great capacity to love one another and display love to others even those who may not have the capacity to love. Why are Christians able to give so much love, it is because they have and are experiencing Gods love for themselves, they are open to God, allowing him to invade every area of their lives, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, have a desire and a boldness to display Gods love to others.
In John 13:34 - Jesus said - “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Jesus is encouraging us to show His love in our day to day living with the people we meet, so they will recognise we are Gods children.
The apostle Paul emphasised how important Gods love was in our lives, because if we do not have Gods love working in our lives we will be ineffective Christians. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 to show how important Gods love is – If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
Then the last verse 1 Corinthians 13:13 reads – And now these three remain: Faith hope and Love but the greatest of these is love.
You will notice Paul mentions three things, Faith hope Love - but the greatest of these is love.
Jesus is the great example of love, so if we read these verses again, and replaces the word love with the name Jesus; it will highlight the true nature of Jesus. Remember John wrote in 1 John 4:16 - God is love, so let us read these verses again and replace Love with Jesus, because Jesus is God. By reading the verses replacing love with Jesus we will see how God through Jesus displays true love.
1 Corinthians 13:1-8 - If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have Jesus, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have Jesus, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have Jesus, I gain nothing.
4 Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind. He does not envy, He does not boast, He is not proud. 5 He does not dishonour others, He is not self-seeking, He is not easily angered, He keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Jesus does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Jesus never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
Then the last verse, verse 13 reads – And now these three remain: Faith hope and Jesus but the greatest of these is Jesus.
The apostle Paul tells us how we can display Gods love. In Galatians 5: 14 we read - The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbour as yourself." Each one of us have the tendency to have the very best for ourselves, but are we willing to help our neighbours the same way?
The apostle then continues to give examples in Galatians 5:22 to 23 of how we can display Gods love. He shows what type of lifestyle we would be displaying when we have the Holy Spirit living and working through us, it reads – 22:But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23:gentleness and self-control. Notice the first fruit the apostle mentioned is Love!!!
Let me ask you the question do you like camping…If you do what type of tent did you use, have you heard of a Wigwam? I want to use the Wigwam which is a round tent to illustrate the fruits of the spirit. In the middle of the tent is the main tent pole with strings attached around the outside of the tent holding and anchoring the tent in place. So let us put to each of the strings the names to the fruits of the spirit to each of the strings but, let’s put the first fruit mentioned which is love onto the pole in the centre and then the rest of the names of all the other fruits of the Spirit onto the strings on the outside.
I have attached the word love specifically to the centre pole, because the bible talks about our bodies are like tents. 1 Corinthians 19:6 says Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies.
So my body is the tent which Gods Holy Spirit lives in. I then have Gods love in the centre of my life, like the pole in the centre of the tent, because His love will be central, I will display His love in all I do and say. By having God’s love central in my heart, He will give me strength and stability.
What will happen if one of the outside strings break, it will put pressure on all the other strings they will have more work to do, this will weaken the stability of the tent. So if we fail to show love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23:gentleness and self-control the world, the folk who are not Christians will soon recognise we are compromising. We will find it so hard to win their trust back when we continue to show Gods love to them. It needs great strength to keep displaying the fruits of the spirit in our lives, but remember it is Gods Holy Spirit living and working in us that gives us that ability.
In 1 John 3:2 - we read these words - Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Jesus is telling us that while we are living on this earth, we will not be able to fully understand many things until we are taken into heaven. First when we arrive in heaven we will be changed, we will have a new body a spiritual body. But it will be many times better than the body we have and we will be able to see, feel and understand all God has in store for us in a much greater way.
Some years back in 2008 while we were working in Romania on mission, I received an email from my niece back in England, to say my brother had a heart attack. But when I returned home my brother told me he had actually died, just for a few moments, and that the doctors were able to bring him back to life again. During those moments my brother had died he went to the very gates of heaven. In those few moments my brother experienced Gods love in its full measure. This has led me to meet other people and read about people who have had similar experiences; each of these experienced the joys of heaven.
God’s love just totally rapped around my brother, but just as wonderful he could feel the immense love of God in his heart, he was free from pain, feeling so happy and free. When I spoke to other Christians and read up about Christians who had had a similar experience, everyone had a taste of God’s love when they visited heaven, they found their human words could not begin to describe the beauty and wonderful feelings Gods love felt like. God’s Love was like the air we breathe here on earth, if we did not have the air to breath we would die. In heaven Gods love was all around and inside them, it is the life sustainer, it was Jesus’s love which was and is the life sustainer of heaven as well as the universe we live in. In heaven everyone and everything was and is bathed in and immersed in God’s love. God’s love gives the light of heaven, there are no shadows. Everyone in heaven experienced that deep love and had great joy and freedom. If you are a child of God, one day you will experience that everlasting love, either when you die or Jesus comes back to take you to live with Him for eternity.
We who know Jesus will have many wonderful surprises when we get to heaven. We can look forwards to what God has prepared for us. The last book of the bible Revelations tell us a lot of what heaven is like. In 1 Corinthians 2:9 we read - 9 However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”— the things God has prepared for those who love him.
Can we be confident that God love will continue to be with us for the time we are living on this earth. what did the apostle write in Romans 8:35 to 39 - 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I want to tell you about a Christian called Leo and what experience he had of God’s love, he is a student at a bible College near our home; I will tell you what happened after he had been prayed for.
Leo a Nigerian Christian recently came over to England. Unable to have a job he ran into dire poverty, then thrown out of his home twice unable to pay his rent. He was destitute but felt God wanted him to train at bible college so when he first arrived in our town of Worcester, he was living in the place of the homeless, as well as the Young Men’s Christian Association House. Wonderful news he was accepted into the Bible College close to us in Malvern, and joined our church.
Soon after starting his studies, from being a lonely recluse of a man he suddenly found himself wanting to talk with folk, especially those he had not had any desire to talk to, those he had been with 18 months at the college. He found himself inviting other students back to his flat for coffee and fellowship. Fellow students would easily opening their heart to him sharing some of their deepest needs. It has been suggested to Leo, maybe was God leading him to be a councillor, as he could easily empathise with the needy.
A short while later Leo came to our home and shared his experiences with us, and then Dave interjected the conversation, because some three weeks back, Leo after one church service had come to Chris and I and said, could you pray for me I want to have more of Gods love. Chris and I prayed for him. Suddenly Leo shrieked a cry of excitement; ah now it all makes sense, God had answered His prayer. He realised that desire to show more of God’s love was alive in his spirit, Gods love was shining through him, Gods love was being invisibly picked up by folk he was in contact with. Leo now has an open heart full of God’s love an effervescence which radiated out, and that open heartedness creates a platform and a desire in folks to want to share their needs. It is what we should all desire, a Godly transparency and Godly love, which enables us to connect with needy folk to display the heart of Jesus.
This next story is before the days of commercial flight. I heard about a young family who were returning home to England by ship from a foreign land as missionaries on furlough for a time of refreshment rest and recuperation. During their stay here in England tragically the father died leaving the mother to bring up two young children. The mother gave her future much thought and decided she with her children would return to the mission field to continue the task God had given them to do. As they were returning on the ship, the mother with her two young children were stood near the side of the ship looking out to sea when the she said to her young children, looking down into the water, asked can you see the bottom of the sea, to which the children responded no. The mother then said to her young children, looking straight across the ocean, can you see the far side of the sea, to which the children responded again no. Then the mother again said to her young children, looking up into the sky can you see the top of the sky, to which the children again responded no. Mum then followed up the conversation by saying that’s how big Gods love is for every person on the earth. After a short pause in the conversation one of the children then remarked, mummy, that means we are in the centre of God’s love. How wonderful is our God.
In a recent book titled Real messages from Heaven the author Faye Aldridge tells of a young 24 year old Christian man Bart Bell who in 1992 was seeking to be an Olympic tandem sprinter. Bart was the pilot of the two man bicycle and sitting behind him was his co-pilot. Bart and his friend practiced on a track which is called a Velodrome, it is dish shaped with the sides of the track bending to 180 degrees vertical. The track is 333 metres long for a race of 1.7 kilometres, with the cyclists travelling up to 50 miles an hour or 75 kilometres an hour. There was one big draw back with the tandem bicycle, it had no brakes. It came the day of the race when Bart was hoping to become world champion. Bart and his co-pilot on reaching 45 miles per hour or 68 kilometres per hour suddenly collided with another cyclist, with Bart hitting his head hard on the track; he was unconscious for two weeks. When he had gained consciousness, he was shown on TV the race he had been in. He recognised everything and shouted out, hey I’m supposed to be in that race, I must have overslept. During the time he was unconscious he described himself as being at the very gates of heaven. In the book he continues to describe what he saw and experienced. I was in a bright light, I did not know where I was, and I was not anxious, insecure or hopeless. Bart could not find the words to describe what he saw, it was inexpressible, human language was inadequate. But he found himself enveloped in love. It was Gods eternal love, it was like the air we breathe, he could taste it, he could hear it, he could smell it, he could feel it, it effected all his senses, it was all around me he was breathing in God’s love. What a wonderful future awaits all those of us who know God as our eternal father and Jesus as our Saviour. We can look forwards to an eternal holiday of bliss and joy with our heavenly father. Let each one of us obtain a copy of heavens brochure, the bible and read for ourselves all that God has instore for us up in heaven. Paul spoke of a man in 2 Corinthians 12: who was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell.
My final quote to you today is, do you agree with the title “all you need is love”. I can say yes it is all you need, but most important it needs to be Gods love living within your heart being displayed in everything you do and say.
Do you know Gods love in your heart, do you have the assurance that you are a child of God. Do you have the desire to share Gods love – We pray you will know and experience God’s love.
