How to love like God is not impossible, it’s just really hard. I mean, sure it’s easy to love like-minded people, but even then there can be challenges. The thing is love one another isn’t a suggestion it’s a command.
God has planted a deep capacity for love in every single person. We are, after-all, created in his image. The command for love therefore requires an intentional discipline for growth. Love doesn’t just happen, it’s practiced. Developing a capacity for deep grace is simply a prayer away.
A number of years ago, while I was attending a women’s gathering, I received a special scripture printed across a bookmark. This Scripture blessing is a favorite part of the retreat, because it is a special prophetic gift from the LORD.
We all waited as the lovely platters made their way through the sanctuary row by row. When it was finally my turn I picked out a bookmark and passed the tray along. Anxious to see which verse I had received, I quickly opened my bible and searched for the reference.
“Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tender-hearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the LORD forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.” Colossians 3:12-14
As I read the verse all the way through, I heard the Spirit highlight the phrase: clothe yourselves with love. There was a little sting, because clearly this was a calling to love better. So I asked the LORD, what does that look like?
What does love look like?
I remember back in high-school, during a sociology class, my teacher asked us what love means. Not usually one to volunteer an answer right off the top, I spoke out with unexpected confidence, “Love is an action.” The class immediately roared with laughter, assuming I was referring to physical intimacy. I wasn’t, but there was no reeling it in.
Over the years, I’ve learned that love is so much more than just an action, but you cannot deny that sometimes it’s easier identify it by action. Words sound nice, but actions demonstrate—at least most of the time.
Look at the Colossians verse again. Tender-hearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, are all manifestations of love, but the verse goes on to say that we should clothe ourselves in love. Love is more than just the action; it is the manner by which we demonstrate it. When you move beyond the action and look to the heart, the very best expression and demonstration of what love looks like is Jesus.
“This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” 1 John 4:10
Love looks like Jesus. If you want to love like God, you must develop a capacity for deep grace. Start by fixing your heart and eyes on Jesus—period. You can’t love without him.
The love of God…
The love of God is so powerful that it heals and transforms lives. The love of God saves!
“But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” Romans 5:8
There is nothing we can do to earn it, because Jesus has already finished it. We do not deserve this love, but he gives it to us anyway. This is certainly not new information, but oh how quickly we forget the fullness of grace.
The LORD created you, declared you beautiful, and calls you by your name. His deepest desire is for you to become all he designed you to be. The Father wants his beloved to be whole and the only way that happens is by His love.
When God established Israel he gave them the Ten Commandments. The first four all center around loving him first, the final six give instruction for how to love one another. When God is first the ability to love others becomes easier.
Intimacy with the Father begins with surrendering your need to earn his love. His grace has been secured by the blood of Jesus, so just receive it. The proving and striving for rightness is an exercise of futility, because without the transforming love of God, holiness and righteousness are impossible. Without his grace, acts of love are empty gestures.
How to love like God
You cannot love if you haven’t first received love from the Father. He has planted in you a deep capacity for love, but he is the one who fills that well.
“We love each other because he loved us first.” 1 John 4:19
I’ve been reading through the Old Testament prophets lately and recurring theme that comes through is God’s distaste for Israel’s empty gestures. Israel prostituted herself with foreign idols, while going through the motions of worshiping God. Their hearts where full of deceit as they pursued a lifestyle of duplicity.
God has not changed. He calls his beloved to come and surrender before the throne of grace. Perfect love pours into the surrendered soul, anyone who is ready to trust and yield to healing and transformation. Receiving the love of God is courageous, because it requires putting self-sufficiency to death.
You want to love like God, than you must learn to pursue him above everything else. Intimacy with the Father is where healing, life transformation, and wholeness happen. It is in the presence of the LORD that you will experience the fullness of God.
He imparts his grace and extravagant love to restore you, so that you in turn pour it out on another. There is no limit on his love so there is no need to hold it back—this is why we need him. He gives so that we can give it away, always with the expectation that we will return for more. No need to store it up, just send it on out!
Practicing love: Getting practical
There are some people who are much easier to love than others, wouldn’t you agree? Yet, we are still called to love one another, even our enemies. Can we agree that loving others is hard work?
Sometimes my flesh struggles to love like God, because it feels too costly. There is nothing worse than offering love only to have it rejected or abused. I know I’m not alone. Here’s the thing, when we begin to attach conditions for our love, we operate out of fear. Perfect love doesn’t coexist with fear.
Okay, so let’s back up a second, because I do want to clarify, boundaries are important. When I talk about attaching conditions for love, I am talking about how we choose to love someone who is lovely over someone who is difficult. Conditional love withholds unless certain criteria are met. You see this demonstrated most profoundly in racism and prejudice, but it also shows up in more subtle ways too.
Boundaries are important, because they help define the right standard. What I mean by that is that God is the source of love—period. He will absolutely impart his love through you and me, but he is the source and the solution. There are people who want you to be the source and solution, but you will never satisfy. Healthy boundaries will help others find healing as we point them back to the Father and his amazing grace and in that way boundaries become a tangible demonstration of what it means to love like God.
Extravagant love
The more I press in and ask him, the more I see that it is a partnership. You and I cannot love like God, unless we are connected to him. We need his help to accomplish this command. Extravagant love is not complicated to understand, but to love like God requires a lot of trust.
The extravagant generosity of love gets old pretty fast, when it is motivated from an attitude of obligation. God asks us to love others. In order to love like God we must tap into his well of grace, because sometimes it’s a big ask!
I’ve also learned that my offering of love should be the expression of who God made me to be. I am unique, with special gifts, skills, and abilities. My offering of love comes from what the LORD has given me, which is always overflowing when my heart is completely yielded to the Father.
You can trust the Father to equip you, resource you, and fill you up with everything you need to accomplish the task before you—even if it means loving an unlovely person. Remember His grace, because this is extravagant love, my friend. It’s hard to love like God, but He makes all things possible.
“Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.” 1 John 4:18
When you love, let yourself love like God. Draw from your experience of his perfect love. Don’t be afraid to give what you’ve been given, because there is always more. When you struggle to do that, go back to throne and listen the voice of the LORD as he speaks grace upon grace over your life.
Tough Love
Tough love is about holding to a standard of God’s righteousness, which is super important, but sometimes distorted when we stop short, lingering on tough. If we are not careful, we can quickly fall back into the trap of creating conditions.
There is a time for tough love, but with emphasis on the love, not the tough. We are called to a holy standard and should walk in it, so tough love should point the other back to the rightness of God. It is gentle, yet firm; merciful, but right.
Tough love trains, teaches, and disciplines, so that the other can experience healing and hope. Love always seeks to lead the other to a place of wholeness, but sometimes that means walking out the consequences of sin.
Love like this rescues through the refinement of discipline. Don’t seek to punish, but also understand that too much mercy can become enabling. Tough love requires the self-discipline of listening to the voice of the LORD. Develop that habit, because you will need this skill to love like God in this realm.
Tough love is hard and will break your heart, but quick fixes only prolong cyclical problems. There are some lessons that are only learned walking it out. Get out-of-the-way and trust God to be present. He will be faithful to finish his work. Your job is to intercede and to encourage.
Tough love only works in the context of covenant relationship. If you want to speak into another person’s life, then you need to build a foundation of trust and love, or your words and actions will come across as harsh judgment. Judgement usually closes the door and any hope of connection.
Compassionate/Merciful love
Guard your heart against callousness and do not close your eyes to injustice. This will take serious work, because it requires stepping outside of what you understand. Dig deep, my friend, because there are some levels of yuck you can’t even imagine. Oppression and abuse demand you find a way to understand, because ignorance typically heaps more hurt into an already painful situation.
Mercy and compassion may feel heavy, but consider how the orphan, the widow, and the broken feel. These are victims of injustice, who need people to stand up and take action. They need people who are not afraid or put off by sorrow or anger. People need a love like God that will go into the hard and endure; love that will fight through. This is what it means to love like God.
Mercy may mean standing up and speaking out against injustice. When we sit back and allow bad things to happen, we become part of the problem. Enabling is just as toxic, so we need wake up to what’s going on around us. Become aware and stand up for what is right. Mercy steps on the battle field and picks up the sword by wielding grace—love.
It may also mean sitting down and holding your tongue in a house of grief. Merciful love bears with, walks with, and advocates for healing. Grief and brokenness require time for rest and healing. Don’t push; lean in and wait. The ministry of just being is a gift of love.
“The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His faithful mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, “The LORD is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him.” Lamentations 3:22-24
The discipline of love
I really believe that to love like God is a discipline that can be developed, it just needs practice. It’s starts with a choice and then that choice is followed up by action. Love is the vehicle of righteousness. It is God’s holy standard and it’s what he’s always pursuing both with us and for us. He invites us into the process, allowing us to participate by imitating what he does.
Where is does your love meter read these days? How do you go after the command to love one another when sometimes it feels to darn hard? What is one tangible step you can take this week in going deeper?