How often have we heard the words: You don’t love me? The phrase spills out after a long argument with someone we love. But they also fall out of our mouths when we suffer a lengthy trial. We doubt God’s love and snarl at Him. Yet, doubting His love is not an act that disbelieves God exists. No, they’re words of ignorance about what love looks like from His eyes.
Love is a profound word. It strokes our innermost being or conjures fire in our souls. Love is casual or intimate. But one thing we can never do is ignore love. Even Psychiatrist Karl Menninger once said, “If people can learn to give and receive love, they’ll usually recover from their physical and mental illness.”
The Bible describes love in three ways: phileō, eros, or agape. Phileō is a casual brotherly love. It’s also the word we use when we say, “I love shoes, fiction novels, gardenias, or caramels.” Eros is romantic. It is sexual love that romance novels try to portray as love instead of lust.
Agape, however, is the highest form of love. Jonathan Landry Cruse states in his book, The Character of Christ,
In eros, I sense a need for one other person. In philia, I have a strong desire for the company and companionship of a handful of others. But in agape, I need or desire nothing. It is the person whom I love that has the need. I see their need and simply to benefit them, not because I am going to get anything out of it; I show them love.
As sinful humans, we expect people to reciprocate our feelings. So, the thought of agape love is strange, and, to some, feels wrong. But in John 13:8, we see Jesus practicing this love by serving the disciples and washing their feet. The disciples protest, but Jesus says, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.”
Agape love is not sentimental, emotional, or runs giddy circles around a tree. It is a selfless sacrifice. It’s godly. Further, love is a sign of belief in Christ. 1 John 4:7 says, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”
If God is love, why do we whisper words of doubt when life seems to fall around us? “You don’t love me!” is an insult to God. First John 4:9-10 continues, “By this, the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 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.”
Therefore, the cross of Christ settles our doubts about His love. In Save From What? Theologian R.C. Sproul’s says about the cross of Christ:
At the moment that Christ took upon Himself the sin of the world, He became the most grotesque, most obscene mass of sin in the history of the world. God is too holy to even look at iniquity. When Christ was hanging on the cross, the Father, as it were, turned His back on Christ. He removed His face. He turned out the lights. He cut off His Son. He became a curse for us so that we someday will be able to see the face of God. So that the light of His countenance might fall upon us, God turned His back on His Son. No wonder Christ screamed. He screamed from the depths of His soul. How long did He have to endure it? Finally, Jesus cried, “It is finished! The forsakenness had ended.
At that moment, Jesus expected nothing from us. There was nothing we could give Him. Our rotten sin lay on him like a filthy blanket, and He accepted it because Jesus agape-d us.
The next time you doubt God’s love for you, remember He has loved you to the max!
A Tree Firmly Planted 