God is love

By Alice Lock & Bernice Gan

Loving others is more than a calling, it is a command. 

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12: 30-31) 

We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19-21) 

We know that God is love, and that our source of love is God, but what does that mean? And how can we use this knowledge to transform our hearts to show love to those around us? 

Love is not easily angered 

How easily do you get offended and irritated? When something goes wrong, do you quickly show your frustrations? When under pressure, are you prickly like a cactus? These reactions are the opposite of love. 

A loving person remains calm and patient, showing grace, and is not easily angered. A loving person is not overly sensitive or easily irritable but chooses to respond pleasantly during prickly situations. 

There are many factors that can cause us to become easily irritable. For instance, stress burdens our spirit and drains our energy. This sets us up to be less tolerant and feel more frustrated. Selfishness leads us to lash out at anyone who stands in our way. 

Being easily angered or irritable is an indicator of a hidden spiritual heart disease. What is the condition of your spiritual heart? Do you have a broken heart, fearful heart, a resentful heart, an ungrateful heart, or a numbed heart? 

The only way to treat this spiritual heart disease is to allow God into our heart; to allow God’s love to heal and revive our heart. When our heart is filled with love, there is no room for hatred, jealousy, bitterness, and selfishness.  

Love will lead us to forgive, to be grateful, to be content. Love encourages us to be joyful, to be patient, to have peace. We can make a choice to let love be the only occupant in our heart. 

Love keeps no records of wrongs 

Have you ever done wrong to someone or has anyone ever done wrong to you?  

1 Corinthians 13: 5 defines love as not counting or remembering offences. Is there anyone you need to forgive (yourself or others) or need to seek forgiveness from?  

The Lexham Theological Wordbook defines forgiveness as “the release, on the part of the creditor or offended party, of any expectation that a debt wil be repaid or that an offender will receive punishment for an offense.” This removal “does not condone the behavior or suggest approval for the offense”. 

When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, he took all the punishment due to us such that God does not count our sins against us any more. Through him, we have peace with God and peace within. When we experience God’s love and forgiveness, by His strength, we are also able to receive forgiveness and extend forgiveness to others. 

Indeed, as the saying goes, “to err is human, to forgive divine” and forgiving others is sometimes very difficult. When we forgive, we are also releasing ourselves from the heavy burden of resentment and retaliation. By keeping no record of wrongs, we can be truly free and find peace within ourselves and with others. 

Love rejoices in the truth 

Love rejoices most in the things that please God. 

This sentence illuminates the truth mentioned in 1 Cor 13:6. Our society often lures us away from believing in God’s timeless truths. We are often tempted to hide the truth, share half-truth or compromise the truth.  

1 Cor 13:6 reminds us that ‘Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.’ When we attempt to cover up our wrongdoing or seek to justify our sin, we are displaying a behaviour that is the total opposite of God’s love. When we try to sweep our co-workers or our loved ones’ wrongdoing under the carpet or when we turn a blind eye to the injustice and unfairness we witness them inflict on others, we are not showing love to them.  

God calls us to desire for the lives of the people we care about to be made right. Love does NOT rejoice in unrighteousness, both in ourselves and in the people we care about. Instead, love treasures God’s truth, celebrates righteous behaviour, and promotes Godly values.