Thomas is precious with his baby brother, Timothy. He has a special voice reserved for their conversations and thankfully, not at his usual volume. He wakes up wanting him and throughout the day, he wants to hold baby brother, with help, of course. He’s good for a few minutes of pure sweetness but when he’s done, he’s done and it’s back to business as usual. He’s a toddler. If you ask me, he’s exceptional, but in true toddler fashion, he’s on to the next thing as quickly as he sees it. He loves his baby brother as well as he’s able. He’s still learning.
So how do we learn to love? It’s a question with a million and one answers, unique to every person, often culture specific, and difficult to pin down because of the complexity of the definition. The Bible simply says, “ God is love,” and proceeds to define who God is by how He loves. (I John 4:8, 16)
How did God love us?
Sacrifice.
”For here is the way God loved the world—he gave his only, unique Son as a gift.
So now everyone who believes in him will never perish but experience everlasting life.“
John 3:16 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/jhn.3.16.TPT
”But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.“
Romans 5:8 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/rom.5.8.NIV
”This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.
And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?
Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.“
1 John 3:16-18 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/1jn.3.16-18.NIV
”Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?“
James 2:15-16 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/jas.2.15-16.NIV
Love is demonstrative. Just as faith without works is dead, so love without action is empty sentiment. (James 2:26) In order to know real love, in order to know God, we must first know Jesus.
”Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.
If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him!”
Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”
Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am?
Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?
The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me.
Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least believe because of the work you have seen me do.“
John 14:6-11 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.14.6-11.NLT
”“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.
I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.
The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.
This command I received from my Father.”“
John 10:11, 14-18 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/jhn.10.11-18.NIV
This is my fifty-third Easter, my forty-third since I placed my faith in Jesus. God’s love shown by His ultimate sacrifice and His patient forbearance amazes me more each year that God allows me to live. The more I know Him through His Word, the more in love with Him I grow. The more I know Him experientially, the more I realize just how much I owe Him. Jesus’s prayer for His followers, for me, makes so much more sense when I understand that He is love and His loves somehow miraculously resides in me!
”So with deep love, I pray for my disciples. I’m not asking on behalf of the unbelieving world, but for those who belong to you, those you have given me.
For all who belong to me now belong to you. And all who belong to you now belong to me as well, and my glory is revealed through their surrendered lives.
Holy Father, I am about to leave this world to return and be with you, but my disciples will remain here.
Holy Father, each one that you have given me, keep them in your name so that they will be united as one, even as we are one.
You live fully in me and now I live fully in them so that they will experience perfect unity, and the world will be convinced that you have sent me, for they will see that you love each one of them with the same passionate love that you have for me.“
John 17:9-11, 23 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/jhn.17.9-23.TPT
”We love because he loved us first.“
1 John 4:19 NIRV
https://bible.com/bible/110/1jn.4.19.NIRV
”Our love for others is our grateful response to the love God first demonstrated to us.“
1 John 4:19 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/1jn.4.19.TPT
“Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God.
Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.
But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.
This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.
No one has ever seen God.
But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.”
1 John 4:7-12 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/1jn.4.11.NLT
How did God love us?
Sacrifice
This is what true love is.
”Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love?
Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?
No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love.
Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.
No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.“
Romans 8:35, 37-39 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/rom.8.35-39.NLT
”When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth.
I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.
Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him.
Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.
And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.
May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully.
Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.
Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.“
Ephesians 3:14-21 NLT
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