What Love Looks Like

I spent several posts explaining why I believe there exists an all-knowing personification of Love who is personally interested in us and who communicates with us through the Bible as his written word, and the reason is because this post would be meaningless without that. 

We can describe love as seeking the ultimate good of the one being loved, and we have said that this occurs through an attitude of caring, knowing, respecting and taking responsibility for that one.  We also said that this love depends not at all upon the beloved, for it is unconditional. 

God goes further than this.  He tells us what we will and will not be doing if we are loving.  He gives us a mirror which we can use to examine ourselves.  It is what in Hebrew, the language in which it was first written, is called the Torah. It’s a word translated into English as law, but is better translated as teaching. 

God gives us teaching and says that whatever is disobedient to that teaching is sin, and that sin earns death as its wages. There is a reason for that.  God is love.  This is what I John 4:8 tells us.  The letter called I John has love as its theme.  It’s an appropriate read for this topic.

God defines love by what it does and by what it refrains from doing.  First, he provides a general description of love.  Deuteronomy 6:5 gives this prescriptive teaching: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” ⁷  Leviticus 19:18 adds: “…you shall love your neighbor as yourself…”⁷ 

Just how are we to do that? 

In Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, are listed what are known as the Ten Commandments.  They are comprehensive and cover almost every area of life when we consider the spiritual principles behind each of them.  Basically, they are ten broad examples of what it means to love God with all our heart, soul and strength and what it means to love our neighbor as ourself.

1. We are told to put nothing ahead of God. Our devotion to him is to supersede everything. This is not ego thing for him, but is totally because it is what is good for us.  He gives us this teaching because of his love for us.

2. We are not to limit God. We must not lose sight of who he is and what he can do.

3. We must grasp his character and what he is, and remember to respect his name because that is what his name represents.

4. We are to be productive, but take the seventh day of every week to rest from that productivity. He doesn’t say one day in seven: he specifies that it is to be the seventh day.

5. We are to honor our parents. That kind of attitude will help us be teachable and we will learn wisdom that leads to long life.

6. We are not to diminish anyone’s life.  The instruction is that we do not murder, but Y’shuah tells us that even if we are angry with someone (“without cause”), we have murdered them (Matthew 5:22).

7. We are not to adulterate our love relationship.  Y’shuah says that even if we look at someone else in lust, we have broken this teaching (Matthew 5:27-28).

8. We are not to steal.

9. We are not to lie.

10. We are not to desire what is not something we can properly have.

The first 5 books of the Bible (the Bible is a collection of books) are known as the Torah, and contain hundreds of statements meant to magnify these 10 instructions.  Collectively they have come to be known in English as the Law. It was given at a time when people did not have access to what the Bible describes as the spirit of God.  When we have his spirit, we have access to wisdom that helps us to see how to apply love. The Law is basically saying “Here is how to love.”

From the New American Standard Bible:

Romans 13:10: “…love is the fulfillment of the law”.

I John 5:3: “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.”

I John 2:3-5: “³ By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. ⁴ The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; ⁵ but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him…..”