This is love

A friend told me about an experience he had while visiting a group foster home recently. He was speaking with a young black girl of 16, who had already had a baby, and tearfully told him how as an orphan she had been bounced from one foster home to another her whole life. She said no one had ever loved her. My friend tried to tell her that God loved her more than a mother or father ever could. As I listened though, I could not help but think that if I were that young girl I would have a hard time believing that statement. In her case, it sounds like a good theory, but not much of a reality.
Most of us don’t really have a biblical understanding of love. To us, it’s a feeling that is given or received by another. In theory, we believe God loves us, and in theory, we love God. In I Cor. 2 it says, “THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM." My question is, how do I love God? Is it just some feeling that I have for God?
God wants our love to be more than a feeling, or emotion, or just a theory. He says we don’t really even understand it. “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” I John 4:10. So Jesus is our example of love. He was our pattern, laying Himself down for others to know the love of God.
So how do we show our love to God? 1Jo 4:11 “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” God is basically saying, Look, I am in heaven, you are on earth. If you say you love me, I want you to show it by serving my people here on earth. He doesn’t just want us to offer up a few praises, flatteries and a “love you God!” as we head merrily out the door about our normal business. He gave us an example of love in Jesus and expects us to follow that, sacrificially showing love to the people around us so that they might come to know the love of God by the love which we have shown them.
1Jo 4:20 If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. 1Jo 4:21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.
True love cannot be a one sided and self centered. As God loves us, we should reciprocate by showing love to others. That is all of the commandments in a nutshell. We should love God, and our love our neighbor as ourselves.

Note: Our first worship on the beach of the season is coming up May 23. We will be meeting there for the next five months or so. This is a weekly outreach that we hope you will be praying for diligently and supporting through your participation as we take the gospel to the beach every week.