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by Jason Henderson
Wrong Definition of Love
We need to step back from how we have defined love and therefore, unknowingly, defined God. Love is far more than just an emotion with God. Love is not just an emotion that motivates Him. Try to set that aside for a bit.
Love is really what God is and what He does.
That is why Scripture says “God is love”. God is, by nature, one that seeks to lavish Himself, pour out Himself, share Himself, give Himself, to those who will receive Him. And yet, you cannot receive this love without first walking through the door that has blood on it.
Love offers a better life
This love, which is the granting of His life, requires the loss of your own. It cannot be otherwise. Jesus says it over and over again. God’s love for us is an invitation into a full participation of His life through His death. Love is granting us the newness of life through baptism into death. It is offering us Himself as our resurrection, when we come into His crucifixion. God’s love is the outpouring, giving, sharing of His Son with us, but the price on that gift is the loss of all that stands opposed to it. Love, from God’s perspective, is the full and unhindered giving of Himself, the giving of His life, and nature and glory in and through the cross – and therefore the necessary rejection and destruction of everything else. It is both an offer and a rejection. It is a destruction and a new creation. It is a death and a resurrection. A judgment and complete liberation.
How does God love you?
How did God love you? He killed you and gave you the life of His Son. He loved you by offering you a death you couldn’t die. He loved you by crucifying you with His Son and causing that Son to be your life. And the natural mind says “WAIT!!…I thought you said He loved me. He wouldn’t reject me and kill me if He loved me!” But see, that is where we go so wrong. He couldn’t truly love you without crucifying you with Christ. RIGHT THERE is the love of God made manifest. He takes away what you were so that He can bring you into the experience of all that He is. I know that may be hard to hear. I know that may sound funny, but it’s better than the alternative.
Loving children of wrath
The reason that we reject this love of God, is because, at a heart level, we disagree with Paul’s assessment of the natural man in Ephesians 2:1-3.
1. And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,2. in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience,3. among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.4. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,5. even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),6. and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, Ephesians 2:1-6
We don’t see our need like Paul saw it. We don’t see ourselves as dead, enemies, vessels of the enemy, children of wrath by nature. Our view of His love incorrectly corresponds to our view of our need. We read right over these first three verses as though they are talking about somebody else. But it is talking about you and I by nature. Not something we did, but something we are. Not a struggle with naughtiness, but something that God could not look upon.
Meeting us were we are at
We like to think of God as being quite fond of us as we are by nature. We like to think of Him forgiving the bad parts, keeping the good and just making it better. We say things like that all the time. “God loves you just the way you are”. “God meets you where you are”. Well, it’s true that God meets you where you are, but that is so that He can kill you. I say that jokingly, but it’s really true. He meets you where you are so that He can take you where He is, but the ladder from one realm to the other is death, burial, and resurrection. He meets you where you are with His cross, because in order to love you he must remove from you all that is horrible and dead and deceived and harmful and in the way of good. And this IS the manifestation of His great love. His love could never leave you as you are. His love is far greater than that. Love conforms you to His image by conforming you to His death.
