gladitudes

There are some things that you hear so often that it’s hard to even know what they mean. One of those things for me is about God’s love. If you’ve grown up in Christian circles or spent time with Christians, hopefully you’ve heard that God loves you. I know I did. The problem, though, is that I heard that so much that I never really stopped to consider what it meant.

Over the past years of my life, I’ve found myself more and more wanting to understand what God’s love really is. In that time I’ve done a lot of thinking and reading and here are a couple thoughts I’ve had. Take a read:

1.) Love isn’t just a feeling. In our culture we think of love as something you feel—more or less feeling good about someone. If God’s love for us was just Him feeling good about us, it would be nice, but it wouldn’t really be life-changing. I feel good about a lot of people and things and it usually doesn’t result in anything other than a smile here and there. But, that’s not what love is. Yeah, love involves feelings for sure, but love is way more than that. True love is a decision and commitment to put someone else’s interests above your own. It’s acting to benefit another above one’s self.

Love understood in this light is profoundly different! God does not just feel good about us, God actively seeks out our best interests. If you haven’t thought about that before, take a second to let it sink in. The Almighty God takes real action to help you and bring about good in your life. You might not see the good and you might not see all your circumstances as good, but it’s there and it’s true.

2.) God’s love for us affects His emotions. Love isn’t a feeling, but it does involve feelings. This is pretty cool to me, in fact, a realization of this is what is prompting my writing today. Check this out:

Zephaniah 3:17 (ESV)

The LORD your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.

God isn’t just some stoic, uninvolved power force. I want to unpack this verse for a second. Look at it by line:

1. The LORD your God is in your midst – This means that He is near to us. He’s not far off and uninvolved, but rather He is close and he cares.
2. [God is] a mighty one who will save – God is mighty to save and He, in His love, has saved us. We have this problem of sin—we think we’re better than God and that we don’t need him. Sin, though, destroys us because good can only come from God. God hates sin because he loves us so much that he hates seeing us be destroyed and missing out on good. God sent his Son, Jesus, to die that He might rescue us from the consequences of our sin, and bring us back into right relationship with Him. That’s intense love.
3. [God] will rejoice over you with gladness – God rejoices over us; in His proactive love, He is excited and full of joy. He doesn’t resent us, He’s not disappointed in us. Rather, He is glad that He made us and that we are His creation.
4. [God] will quiet you by his love – I have to read into this a little bit, but saying that “He will quiet you” implies there’s anguish and maybe some hurt. God longs to bring us peace and comfort through his love. Incidentally, this also alludes to how deeply He cares about us and our circumstances.
5. [God] will exult over you with loud singing – Have you ever heard some really good news (like a favorite sports team victory, a great job offer, etc.) and just started shouting for joy? I know I have. That is how God feels about us every single day. He’s that excited. Sounds crazy? I think it does, but when you love someone, you do crazy things… and God loves someone… everyone, actually.

To me the notion that God gets excited or that He shouts for joy is pretty crazy. But, I know that I feel things, and I get excited, and I shout for joy. Maybe we feel those things because God feels those things. And maybe, too, God gave us those emotions so that we would better understand Him and how He feels about us. Think about it.

God cares about us deeply; He proactively works to bring about good for us; and He shouts with joy over us because His love for us is so intense that it fills Him with excitement. That is what it means when people say, “God loves you.” :)