The Love of God

The Love of God

The Love of God
by Jeremy Neely
(Wur'ship Project, http://www.wurship.com)
8/1/2007

Recently I have been pondering on the Love of God. The subject came up one morning while my mentor, Floyd Smith, and I were studying about obedience, temptation, and living the life of Christ. In this we began to see the Love of God. Before we get into what Floyd and I saw, first I should give you a little background about the journey with God that has led me to this point.

Seven years ago my wife, Kaci, and I began to follow Jesus Christ and made Him Lord of our lives. During this time we saturated ourselves in the word and found a common theme among the Apostle's writings...live a Christ-like life. This was rather exciting to Kaci and I as we both grew up in the Church and were weary of religiousness. This was functional. This was something to strive for, but we were still a tad in the dark as to how to do this.

Shortly after this revelation a man by the name of Floyd Smith walked into our lives. Floyd was in his late 50's when we first met and I could quickly tell that this man has been searching for what we were searching for. Floyd went through Bible College and Seminary as a young man and left school with a Masters Degree thinking, "I did not find what I was looking for here". At that point in time, he began to dig into the book of Matthew eventually memorizing the whole book. This unlocked the Gospels and the letters of the Apostles in an amazing way. For the purposes of this column, I will make it short in saying that Floyd helped show us how to live a Christ-like life. This is so profound that it is almost a "duh" moment in my life. The answer is in the Gospels. The Gospels are an account of the life of Jesus. If we want to see how to live a Christ-like life, why not look at the life of Christ? Wow!

Now to bring this back around to the Love of God. The more we saw the context of Jesus being the dictionary by which both Jews and Gentiles alike must see the Father, the more we saw that the Love of God is clearly shown in the simple, mundane life of Jesus Christ. So simple and mundane that most Denominations, Organizations, and Churches pass right over this. That statement right there may offend some of you and shut you off. I want to assure you that this is not an anti-Church statement. As a matter of fact, if this thought becomes anything less than functional in our lives, meaning if it becomes a philosophy or an idea that we argue, then it is nothing more than another doctrinal, legalistic, dogmatic statement that will not bear fruit.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Worship Him alone. Love your neighbor as yourself and pray for your enemies. Can you see this in the life of Jesus? The love of God poured out on a road where everyone else took their 10 paces, hissing unclean, but Jesus walked straight to the Leper and touched him. When we realize that this Leper has not felt the touch of another human being for who knows how long, and how important a mere touch can mean to someone. We begin to see the mundane and simple Love of God in action. The Gospels are full of such accounts. Carefully, I do not want to dwell on the miracles or diminish them either. On the contrary I want to see past some of that to the compassion, mercy, and love of "God with us", Jesus Christ.

Read 1 Corinthians 13 (commonly used at Wedding ceremonies) in the context of the Life of Jesus. "If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am a resounding gong..." and "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud." Are you seeing it? It's amazing and it is completely counter cultural!

The Love of God is simple, it's mundane, it's counter cultural, but it is life changing. Take up the charge with me and let's seek out the life of Christ in a goal to please our Father in Heaven. The result will be the Love of God pouring from our lives and the world around us changing.