Love is a unique phenomenon. It makes us do things that go completely against our nature and our nurture. Love is beyond this world. It is supernatural. Because God is love, and He is omnipresent, and we are in His image we get a residual experience of His perfect love. We see even total pagans love a spouse or their children and whatnot. Love is from and of God, and everyone on this earth experiences varying amounts of it. I think our love for God is actually a good way of explaining Christianity. Christianity is fundamentally different from other religions and beliefs. The Bible lays out Christianity in a distinctive way, but to get there let’s lay out our 5 hypothetical options:
We Don’t Love God
We Love God and He Doesn’t Care
God Loves Us and We Don’t Care
We Love God and then He Loves Us
God Loves Us and then We Love Him
Each of these views are talked about in Scripture and we obviously see their beliefs in the real world. This exercise can also be used to explain what Christianity really is at its core. So let’s get started.
We Don’t Love God
Whether in the form of atheism, agnosticism, non-theistic religion, or just plain old apathy, lots of people don’t love God then assume either God doesn’t exist or doesn’t care.
We Love God and He Doesn’t Care
This is the fear of so many that they will be devoted to God and it won’t be enough. Maybe they were just too wicked or maybe God’s standards were just too high, but either way the results the same. Your love for God was not enough to receive the same in return.
God Loves Us and We Don’t Care
There are some Universalists, I suppose, that just think God sends everyone to heaven because… reasons. But in general the people who know God loves them and just don’t care are hurt, broken, angry people. Whether in the deep recesses of their mind or just the total rejection in their hearts, the love of God means nothing to them.
We Love God and then He Loves Us
There are obviously those within Christianity that believe this, but that’s crazy talk. We didn’t send our one and only Son. We didn’t die for our own sins. We didn’t connect God and man in any way. Hard to argue we did anything first, however, this is the basis for many religions worldwide.
God Loves Us and then We Love Him
This is the correct order. This is Christianity. God loved us before we loved Him or even could have loved Him. We only love Him because we realize that he loved us and experience His love. Our love in return is the logical response.
Here are just 15 displays of God’s love for us: (feel free to add another 30 more in the comment section)
- He created us. (Gen 1:1)
- Made us in His image (Gen 1:27)
- Didn’t kill us after we sinned (collectively or individually) (Gen 3:9)
- Sent His One and Only Son to Earth (John 3:16)
- Became a human being (John 1:14)
- Died for our sins (1 Cor 15:3)
- Took our punishment (1 Peter 2:24)
- Forgave us for killing him (Luke 23:34)
- Shared the grace He earned with us (Eph 1:7)
- Prepares a place for us in Heaven (John 14:3)
- Adopts us as a child (Eph 1:5)
- Gave us His Holy Spirit (2 Cor 1:22)
- Freed us from the bondage of sin (Rom 6:18)
- Made us a new person (2 Cor 5:17)
- Gave us a new purpose (2 Tim 1:9)
Because we have been loved we should love God in return and likewise we should love others in the way we have been loved. To think His love would falter at this point in our lives is to ignore all the displays of the love of God up to this point. His love isn’t dependent on ours. If it were? I guarantee we’d screw it up.
Joe Allotta 