Striking Love

"The love of the Lord." -

Hos_3:1

This phrase is almost like "count your blessings" - for the Lord's love is as easily forgotten as His blessings... and they are inseparably linked. His blessings flow from His love, demonstrate His love, and define in many ways His love. Yet, His love is a well that never shall run dry.

Many people consider love to be a feeling. We define love by that warm fuzzy feeling we get when we are around someone we care deeply for. God defines love quite differently - and expresses His love for us according to HIS definition, not ours. He defines love as a verb - an action word. He demonstrates His love for us by what He does, not how He feels.

One of the most striking demonstrations of God's love toward us is His burning desire to separate our sins from our souls. God knows, by His holiness, the destruction that sin causes. He knows how far we come from Him the moment we sin. He hates both the destruction and the breech of fellowship that sin causes in our lives and our relationship with Him. He hates to see His creatures hurt or damaged in any way. He knows that sin is at the root of that. The love of the Lord has prompted Him to go to great lengths to separate us from our sin. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life." The blood of Jesus was shed to wash us from that debilitating, imprisoning sin, and forever unite us with Him.

It is also a striking demonstration of God's love that He should heap upon our heads burning coals of good deeds, that we might repent of our evil deeds - most namely the enmity we have had toward God Himself by our mocking, disobedience, irreverence, and inconsideration. Repenting - turning away from such things - is how we actively embrace the love of the Lord for ourselves.

Therefore, there is the sense that we are cleansed by God of our sins, and the sense that we willingly are cleansed by our repentance. The Love of the Lord precipitates both equally, and as we reflect, we see that true love hates sin in all forms. It is not evil to want good for another - or to pursue it. Love is the active pursuit of good for another, not the fear of retaliation for confronting evil in another, as many parents do when they fear to discipline their children; as many spouses do when they fear to hold their loved ones to a higher standard than drinking, drugs, gambling, spouse abuse, or any other sinful neglect. It is all love - and a love that the Lord has for us. May we all respond with genuine repentance and return His love by devoted obedience and faithful proclamation of how much we love Him!