Spiritual Hunger: “God reveals Himself the most to those who want to know Him the most.”

(Via The Batterson Blog – Thoughts on Life and Leadership.)

One of the things that God has really focused my heart toward is learning to love like God does. So today I want to begin a series of posts that first look at defining what love looks like from God’s perspective.

Then I would love to explore what it looks like for us to practically live that out day to day in the 21st century. What’d ya say? Will you join me on this journey to explore love and what the Bible says it is or is not?

First it would be good to define love. For this I dove into a recently acquired copy of the Zondervan Bible Dictionary. Here is a summary of what it said:

Love is the very nature of God – 1 Jn 4:8,16

It is essential to man’s relationship with God – Matt. 22:37-40

All the Law and the Prophets hang on love – Matt 22:40, Rom 13:8-10

In this superior attribute all other attributes are harmonized

Jesus Christ is the unique object of this eternal love – Isa. 42:1, Matt. 3:17, 17:5, Jn 17:5

Love is created in the believer by the Holy Spirit – Rom. 5:5, Gal. 5:22

Love is the chief test of true Christian discipleship – Luke 14:26, Jn 13:35, 1 Jn 3:14

Just recently received the following devotional from Zondervan and it hit me where I am at. Jim Cymbala makes a really good point here. Especially as we enter a time of year where our focus “we say” is on Christ and celebrating His coming to Earth. If we are really trying to follow God and reconnect with Him than shouldn’t we really look like him?

One of the greatest spiritual self-deceptions is the idea that we are living close to God even though we care little about the people around us. This simply does not square with 1 John 4:8: “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” We can study the Bible as diligently as the Pharisees did; we can boast in our doctrinal statements; we can raise lots of money and build impressive church campuses. But if we are not loving others, including those who are unlike ourselves, we are ignoring the truth of 1 John 4:20, which says, “If we do not love a fellow believer, whom we have seen, we cannot love God, whom we have not seen.” It’s as simple as that. (You Were Made For More)