The word “love” has been romanticized so much that it now means something that is very far away from its true meaning.

I love this chocolate!
I love my pair of jeans!
I love me so much that I don’t have time for somebody else!
I love cake!
I love this kind of car, shoes, dog, burger, you name it!

The Bible says, “God is love.” 1 John 4:16

And for some the interpretation of the above short verse is “Love is god.”

So with such a twisted and distorted understanding of love, love is promoted as anything that feels good. As long as it feels good, it must be love; and since love is god, how can anybody refuses to worship the god that feels good, right?

But when the word of God says, “God is love,” we should ask:

So if God is love, how does God show that He is love?

The Bible gives us answers:

“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

Woah! That is radical! And guess what? That is the meaning of “God is love.”

And when we say to God, “Lord, I worship You! I follow You,” He says, “Then learn to love Me the way I love you and learn to love your neighbor.”

So as followers of Christ, the one thing we should constantly ask ourselves, I believe, is this:

“Am I learning to love God? Am I learning to love my neighbor?”

Some people, because they go to a church where they always learn how they fall in love with themselves and this life, they have no idea about loving God and others.

They say, “Oh how I love God!” And with the same breath, they tell you that they live life as they want.

Why?

They only know the distorted meaning of love that demands nothing from them.

Jesus said,

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. . . He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” John 14:15

Without loving God, no one can keep God’s commandments.

Paul writes:

“I pray that out of his[God’s] glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge —that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:16-19 NIV

Did you see that?

Growing in loving God prevents a besetting sin to dwell in our lives. Living in darkness, leading double life won’t mark our lives because as God is love, God is light, no darkness with Him.

“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” 1 John 1:5-7 ESV

Somebody may ask: So how do I learn to love God?

Read/study/meditate and obey the word of God. No other way and no shortcuts! ///