True Love Is Meant to Be Experienced
(adapted excerpt from Knowing and Experiencing God)
A children’s song that almost everyone in church has heard and learned is:
Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong; they are weak, but He is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.
While it’s true we come to know and are made aware of God’s love through the Bible, His love is way more than mere knowledge. It’s also something that can and should be experienced and believed because God islove!
In 1 John 4:7-8, John clearly tells us that God is love and that God and His love are to be experienced. He uses phrases like “love is from God” and “everyone who loves knows God (through experience)” for God is love….
As Christians, we can speak volumes about the love of God. I remember many years ago being able to discuss the love of God at length, long before I had actually experienced it. I had an intellectual knowledge about His love, but not an experiential knowledge. What I needed most was to experience His love—for myself.
At the time, I could easily say, “God loves you unconditionally, brother. That means He’s made a decision to love you. You may not ever experience it with feelings and such, but He loves you.”
Since experiencing His love personally, I’ve realized the emptiness of such a statement.
Imagine my wife never experiencing my love or my kindness. Let’s pretend she never experiences my love because I don’t ever communicate with her face-to-face, touch her, or ever spend any time with her. All she gets from me are occasional typed letters from my office, delivered by my secretary, telling her that I love and care for her dearly.
Finally, one day, she tearfully bursts into my room and throws herself at me in complete desperation, sobbing, “Arthur, I want to experience you. I want to feel this love you say you have for me!”
Imagine me responding coolly and casually, “Well honey, I have made the decision to love you. Don’t you worry about it! All you need to do is believe it,” and then I turn around to functionally ignore her again, as I get back to the many pressing tasks of my international business!
Will she ever really feel loved? Of course not! Yet, that is how you and I often feel God treats us! All we have to do is read the Word and believe that He loves us, but we can never feel or experience it in a personal way.
As we enter this time of celebrating Easter, let us do what John said in Verse 16 above:
Let us “…come to know [by personal observation and experience], and have believed [with deep, consistent faith] the love which God has for us. God is love.”
Friend, God’s love can be experienced. He is not too busy for you. Your heavenly Father’s love is for you to experience today and every day!
Blessings,
Arthur
