Abiding

God is love … something we are often taught from our earliest years. But what does it mean to say that God is love? How should that affect our lives? Can we be sure, or is it something we just say to children? Do we experience God as love? Do we allow the God of love truly into our daily lives, or do we just acknowledge that, without actually believing in it?

These and other thoughts came into my mind as I read 1 John 4: 7-21. It is a crucial passage on the love of God, and repays deep meditation. Does it answer these questions? Well, it tells us that Jesus coming to live amongst us shows the love of God. In pondering Jesus’ life and death, we can see how the love of God is made manifest amongst us. That is what it means to say that God is love … read Philippians 2:5-11. That is what the love of God is. Do we experience God as love? According to 1 John 4:7-8, whoever does not love does not know God. That sounds quite hard. There are times in the life of all of us when we are not as loving as we could be, when we fail to love, when we find someone else so difficult that we cannot love them. Does that mean we’ve had it, it’s all over for us? I think we can take comfort from later verses. Read 1 John 4:10-12. Love is found not in our love for God or others (thankfully), but in the fact that God loves us. Love comes from God, love is God; where love is, there we find God.

When we find love difficult – and it is not meant to be easy – then maybe we can turn to God. We do not have to get love perfect before coming to God; we simply have to come. To come and allow God to do the rest. By separating love and God, we maybe put ourselves in the position where WE have to do love; where we have to get love right in order to worship God. In this we will fail and God does not expect that of us. I wonder how many of us try allowing God to love through us? To think that it is not I who love, but God who loves in me, for God is love. To follow the God of love does involve loving our neighbour – the rest of 1 John 4 makes that clear. If we do not love our neighbour, whom we see regularly, how can we love God, whom we have not seen? That makes that clear! But what does it mean to love? I think possibly we have put love in the realm of ‘feelings’ too much. That is not to say that love is not a feeling, but that it is not just – or even not primarily – a feeling. Love is seen in action. We may feel we cannot love somebody, but what do our actions say?

To believe in the love of God is far more than simply feeling that we are loved. There are likely to be times in all our lives when we do not feel that God loves us, or when we feel unloved. That does not mean that we are not loved, or that God does not love us. It means that we do not feel that. That God is love is a fact; wherever love is, God is (even if this is not always recognised). We love, not because of us, but because God loves us. How do we follow that through? How do we have faith in the God of love, rather than giving it a nod of the head and then carrying on regardless? It may be shown in our love for our neighbour, but how do we root this in our lives more deeply?

A daily coming to God, in penitence, in praise; a daily reviewing of our lives, and giving thanks for the working of God, and saying sorry for when we have messed up. In a daily giving of our lives to God; in meditation on the fact of God’s love. A looking for the daily miracles that show God’s love in ways which we can often miss. In regularly praying for our neighbour, whether we feel we love them or not. Loving in ways which we may not even realise. Read the parable of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25. Neither the sheep nor the goats realised that they were (or were not) loving Jesus when they did (or did not) those actions that the parable states. I can imagine those on Jesus’ left saying that the judgment is not fair. If they had known that Jesus was the one they were ignoring, then of course they would have done something! But that is to miss the point. Those on Jesus’ right hand did not know this either, but still loved their neighbour. How we do it does depend on individual circumstances. We are not expected to solve the world’s difficulties. That is God’s problem. We are called to allow God to love us; to abide in that love; and to live out that love.

Not that this will be easy. There will be times when it feels impossible. There will be tough times in our lives, when the love of God feels far beyond us, when even acknowledging it seems impossible. There will be times in our lives when our individual circumstances will limit how we love our neighbour. We may even have such a hard time believing that we are loved that it becomes almost impossible for us to love others. Remember, though, that it is God who loves us; that the God who loves us will be there throughout these times, even if we cannot feel or acknowledge it. That God will be carrying us, even when it feels as though we are ploughing our way alone. For God is love; that is the basic fact from which all else flows.