The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"Love and Relationship"
"Love, as defined by God and His Word, is relationship. Relationship is love."
God exists as a relationship, that is, one God dwelling "from everlasting to everlasting" as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
"From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God… Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world...The Father loveth the Son… I love the Father… the love of the Spirit (Psalm 90:2; John 17:24; 3:35; 14:31; Romans 15:30).
In God, "love" and "relationship" are synonymous. In born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, He works to establish the same truth in our hearts and lives. Indeed, the more we discover what it means that "God is love" within His own triune being, the more we become motivated, led, and enabled to live accordingly. "In Thy light shall we see light" (I John 4:8; Psalm 36:9).
That which is eternal in our Lord ever proceeds as a work in progress for those who trust the Lord Jesus. The beauty of His relating to others, first in Himself, and then in His creation, constitutes our Heavenly Father's primary purpose for us. The two greatest of all commands - to love God and love our neighbor - confirm this intention, as does the Apostle Paul's treatise of love to the Corinthians (Mark 12:30-31; I Corinthians 13). In this light, should we ever wonder, "What is God doing in my life?," we can always know He seeks to reveal the glory of His triune love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit unto us and within us for the sublime purpose of changing us "into the same image" (II Corinthians 3:18). He works to centralize and emphasize relationship, the relationship defined by Scripture as love.
How does the Bible define the love of God? In the largest sense, it does not. Because it cannot. "The love of Christ… passeth knowledge" (Ephesians 3:19). This constitutes the first truth to be known about love and relationship, namely, to whatever degree we know anything at all about such glory, an unending journey awaits our hearts. In the more temporal sense, Scripture points us to the Lord Jesus as the model of genuine love in God, and in us. "Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us" (Ephesians 5:2). The Bible also directs us to a most marvelous gift of God's grace: "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us" (Romans 5:5). Our Father well knows a love that "passeth knowledge" transcends our innate human comprehension and capability. Thus, the Lord Jesus prayed that God's love would find a way into our hearts, and then He suffered and died on the cross of Calvary to make such a wonder possible in all who trust Him.
"The Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see Me. Because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in Me, and I in you" (John 14:17-20).
"I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them… We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." (John 17:26; I John 4:16).
Love, as defined by God and His Word, is relationship. Relationship is love. Ever and always - and in this moment - our Lord works to form and inform our awareness, apprehension, and application of this greatest of all glories of God's nature, and in the marvel of His grace, the greatest of all glories in our Christ-redeemed nature. The best and brightest among us yet know so little of this "hope of glory" in the light of what can and will be discovered on an eternally unending journey into the being of God. It will always seem this way, and our best response in the present is to realize the truth that love and relationship are synonymous in God, and in His purpose for us. Thus, in every relationship in our lives, beginning with God and proceeding to all others, let us cast our hearts more fully into this reason for which we exist, and for which the Lord Jesus died. All other things are circumference. Relationship is central. To know the love of God in Christ, as revealed in the Bible and actively resident within us through the Holy Spirit, and then to relate to Him and others in response, this is life, the life and the love of relationship. We will find no other. Because there is no other.
"This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."
(John 17:3)
"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God."
(I John 4:7)
Weekly Memory Verse
"Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen."
(Ephesians 3:21)
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