day 1606

 

“He who does not love does not know God …”

 (1 John 4:8, NKJV)

In the previous teaching, we learnt that God draws people to Him in His own particular way. We concluded with an immensely important question: how does He draw people to Him?

All that is true of God because He loved us first (1 John 4:19), brings about a mystery, as his characteristic being – which is love – could not make this manifest in any other way but through love. We need to take a closer look at the central conceit of 1 John 4:16: “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” If God IS love, then love IS, metaphorically speaking, also God. Therefore, the only way in which God can draw ALL people to Himself is not through knowledge of Him, but through love, through “the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:19).

In his book True Spirituality, Francis Schaeffer makes a very important statement, noting that in his activities of creation, God is limited only by His character (p. 86). If God’s characteristic nature is then explicitly noted as love, it means that He is also limited by it. This is another way of saying that He cannot help but draw people to Him through his characteristic nature, as the love of all things is after all, the greatest (1 Cor. 13:13). We cannot however qualify this love according to our own definitions and preferences or aversions or thought constructs, as most believers alas do not carry the uncontaminated love of God (John 5:42) within them. Faith, for instance, works according to Gal.5:6, only through love! This is a terrifying truth that can easily elude us, but that has enormous implications for our walk of faith. Selah! Also, the spelling out of this analogue truth: it is only when you are “rooted and grounded in love” (Eph. 3:17) that Christ can live in your heart through faith! This sweeping statement in 1 John 4:8 truly offers much for the believer to ponder: “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

That which we regard as love in our lives, if it were to be tested (2 Cor. 8:8), would reveal that we are “unloving” (Rom. 1:31), to not even speak of “the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:39).

Love is alas not only a choice, but a manifested state of truly being born again, the marker of the Godly nature. Read the teachings of Day 1379-1391 again, in which we tried to outline love as God intended it.

Let’s return to the question that we were trying to answer, namely: how does God draw people to Him? I’d like to turn to C.S. Lewis, who, in his captivating book Surprised by Joy, speaks of “the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet” (p. 78). One would struggle to find a more apt description of the process of seeking that occurs between man and God.

 

  • Selah: In your life, is love a manifestation of being truly born again?
  • Read: 3-5.
  • Memorise: 3:7-8.
  • For a more in-depth understanding: Read one of the books mentioned above.