Ridgell's Originals

God is love.

God loves you.

Loving God is the greatest commandment.

Loving your neighbor as yourself is the next.

So what does "love" mean.

I hear things like this...

"God loves me so He wants me to be happy and I can only be happy if..."

"God loves everyone so He would never send anyone to hell - so maybe there isn't even an hell."

"Loving others means helping them be the best version of themselves (as they see it)."

So here is the problem.

We want to define love.  And by extension, we want to have a god like we think he should be.

It doesn't work that way.

God is the standard of love.

He will never be unloving.  Anything God tells us to do is love.  Anything God tells us not to do is love.

God's love means He absolutely wants the best for us.  

The sacrifice of His Son on the cross is an act of love.

So if anything God desires seems unloving, it is our misconception.  Not God's.

God is so far beyond us that we cannot really understand His love.  Much less define it.

There has never been one thing God has ever done or said that was not love.

I may not understand it.  I may not like it.  It may not make sense to me.

But He is God.  Not us.

# posted by Steve @ 5:00 AM