GOD IS LOVE

by the_beloved_disciple  

For a bit of time after I came to know Christ as the Risen One, the True One, the Only One worthy of my worship, my life, I wondered, “What is love?”  “Love is not a feeling,” they’d say.  “Love is action.”  Well, I was tremendously confused for a while (maybe not confused because it made sense, but uncertain) having no knowledge of what this “love” was.  Clearly, it was important because St. Paul goes to the extent of saying that these marvelous deeds and gifts of prophecy, tongues, etc., though so profound and from God Himself, would be nothing without love. Nothing!  Let that sink in.  If I could heal someone by the power of God, but not loving, it would be nothing. Null. Zero.  St. Paul says that even if we give up our bodies to be burned, it would mean nothing without love. No deed, not even the greatest deed is nothing in comparison to this one word, “love”. So what is this love?

I want to remind you, brothers and sisters, of what this love is.  It is what we were made for.  We were made for love and by love and through love. To love.  Brothers and sisters, do you ever feel that you don’t find your right place on this earth, that even though you have found Jesus – or maybe some of you reading this haven’t yet – you just find something uneasy deep down. You feel like you are in the wrong place, like you haven’t fit in yet, haven’t found your home on this earth. 

Brothers and sisters, give yourself away.  What do I mean by ‘give yourself away’? I mean we weren’t made for ourselves.  We were made to give ourselves away.  And every human person we see is an invitation to give ourselves away.  That human person who is made in the image of God is an opportunity to give ourselves to God. To serve others and in turn, serve God.  For the purpose, the sole purpose of glorifying God.  For this is why we were made. 

Brothers and sisters, I invite you to at least consider this realization.  Invite God into your life to enlighten your spirit as to what love is.  What this love is for which we were made.  Jesus loves us.  And as cliché as it sounds, it is real.  God loves us so intensely with every fibre of His infinite being, His infinite being, with infinite love.  And He invites us to love Him back.

God doesn’t call us to work for Him, like employer and employee or, like slave or servant.  God invites us to be His children, to be welcomed into the heavenly family, to take on a nature like His.  And we strive for that in this life, by His grace and His gift.  God calls us into a relationship of love.  Do you feel like you are dragging through? Like every prayer is difficult, a job? Or maybe you just don’t get why some people care so much about God and devote so much of their time to One whom they can’t even see or prove empirically whether He is there. 

Brothers and sisters, I invite you to invite God into your life, the God who is love, to show you that love, to show you that there is more to life and living, to show you that you were made for something more, to show you that you are precious by divine grace.  To show you that every fibre of your being screams of His glory if only you’d open our ears and our eyes to hear and see it.  To listen to His voice.  His beautiful soothing voice that takes away all pain, all hardship, all negligence, all sin, all burden. Every lack of completeness that you are or were searching for, that would make you whole again. 

Brothers and sisters, invite God. Give God a chance for who He is and not for what He does. Even though what He does, in fact, screams of His endless glory and praises Him.  Don’t you realise that the breath we take is borrowed breath from the One who gives freely? The fibre of strength to stand, that strength which holds us up, is beyond us. That life is something special that was breathed into us by One who is greater, infinite, all powerful, and looking after us.  That it is His desire to look after you.  To give to you.  Because that is who He is, the giver of life.  And the giver of life freely.

Because that is what love is.  Not the payment of a debt to God, but the giving freely.  Totally, fruitfully.  Because when we give ourselves – for that is what we were made – we allow God to release something much greater in ourselves.  Love is a person, brother and sisters.  Love is God and God is love.  Not that if I love, or think I do, it is this love that I worship. No, all love stems from God. It is that true love that transcends all understanding and all pain and hurt and the existence of our being.  Love breaks barriers, tears down walls.  If we’d love, we’d truly change the world.  Because love is divine.  No, it is not from us.  It is from God.

But what do we have to give in all this? We have our free will, to choose to let go of ourselves and give ourselves away to the other person to serve God.  To give ourselves away to the One who created us, who created every fibre of our being and stitched us together in love. He made us to love us, to give Himself to us, for that is what true love is.  To give the self away.  Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that is what they do for us.  All three persons in the One God who loves us.  So my brothers and sisters, what does God see when He looks at you?

At the time of writing, I came to this realisation – by divine grace, I’d suppose, because how else could one receive such a conviction? How else could one receive such a grace? Any grace for that matter? Love is in the fibre of our very being.  I look in the mirror and what do I see? I see myself, a body, but made by God, stitched together in the fibre of love. Every fibre of my being, every speck of my body aching with love, screaming with the love of God that is intrinsic to us.  What do I mean by all this?

I mean what does God see when He looks down at us? He sees our bodies physically.  But inside there is so much more, not physically inside, but spiritually, in the reality of who we are, the core of what is important to God.  God sees a child of His. And sometimes, we tend to place our human limitations on God.  God does not love like we do, brothers and sisters; God loves so much more.  God loves intensely, individually, and for some of us, like myself, it may have gotten old.  When we first found out, it was such a shock and a tremendous, beautiful surprise. It was the most precious gift wrapped in the most precious paper, the Holy Spirit, which was also part of the gift, the core part of the gift. 

But then, we got accustomed to it and the trials of life, as if the seed fell among thorns, and we forgot this love for which we live.  My brothers and sisters, God is love, and He loves us for who we are.  But He will not let us stay the way we are.  As Fr. Donald Calloway testifies to the Virgin Mary saying to him, “You do not have to change to love me, but loving me will change you.” And so it is also with God, the God who is love.  Loving Him will change us. 

So don’t focus first on what to do for God — even though it is in the choices that we make that we are led to God — but focus on the persons of God, the three persons.  And in knowing them, you will know His will for you and you will love Him, the love that transcends, the love that overcomes, the love that conquers and conquered all.  Brothers and sisters, God is love. And rest in that thought.