Misconceptions: Godly Love

Many people say, "I thought Christians were supposed to love everyone"  or "God is love."  Both statements are absolutely true!  The Bible does tell us that God is love. God's love is nothing like the love between friends or between lovers.  God's love is pure and unmerited.  It does not wax or wane.  It was demonstrated for us on the cross in that "But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." Romans 5:8, TLB

God is love, but He is also much, much more than love alone.  And that is coming in another post, for another day.

The closest mirror to God's love that mankind demonstrates  here on earth is the love a parent has for a child.  Any good parent, draws the line in what they will and won't allow a child to do, in order to keep them safe.  In order to give them what is best for them. Sometimes, it's merely a situation of teaching them restraint.  One cookie is okay, twenty leads to a belly ache and pain.   Other times, a parent's love may lead them to seem harsh in order to protect their child.  They might swat a hand that reaches out toward a hot stove or a fire. Better a little pain that is soon gone than searing pain that will leave scars that never go away. 

I Corinthians 3 Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.3 You are still worldly.  -NIV

Now, you are closer to understanding God's love.  Too many today expound only the part that God loved us so much while we were sinners that He sent His son to pay the price for those sins, but never go on to tell that God has no plan to leave us that way!  For one thing, we can't have the fellowship with God that He desires when we are living in sin.  For another thing, those sins will leave nasty scars on our lives that keep us from living life fully.  

Here, is the Bible's definition of true love, Godly love.  It's nothing any of us can obtain on our own, but something we should all aspire to.

I Corinthians 13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror;then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.- NIV