What's Love got to do with it?
Some years ago the one and only Tiny Turner asked the question, “What’s love got to do with it”? Before this the Beatles had already told the world that “All you need is love”. During this month of February many will send a Valentine’s Day card to a loved one or to someone they secretly admire; during the month of February “love is in the air”. Everyone wants to love or be loved. This is what God has made us for - to love and be loved.
The Bible says that the God who made us for love is Himself love, 1 John 4:8, which doesn’t mean that love is the nice stuff God is made of, rather love originates in God Himself. God is love because from eternity God the Father has always loved God the Son, and the Son has always loved the Father, and both Father and Son have always been in a bond of perfect and pure love with God the Holy Spirit. Perhaps it was this bond of eternal love within God, between Father, Son and Spirit, that inspired the rock group Madness to sing “It must be love, love, love”. Suggs and his Madness bandmates sing of love x 3 - love, love, love. Were Madness big on the Christian doctrine of the Trinity? Probably not!
Recently at Bishopbriggs Free Church we considered the significance of believing and seeing something of the great love that has always existed between God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. You see until we understand or appreciate the great love that has always existed within God Himself we will never understand or appreciate the great love God has for us.
Its said the most famous verse in the Bible is John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life”.
Think of what this verse is saying: its teaching that in order for us to have eternal life, God the Father gave up Him who was most dear to Him, Him whom He has always loved from eternity, God the Son.
Did you know that God loved you enough to send His Son into the world to take the punishment your sin deserves? How much love must God have for us? How much must He treasure the world, His world, that He would give up for the world not an angel, but Himself?
The greatest love we can know or experience this Valentines Day isn’t in a card from a spouse or a secret admirer; the greatest love we can know or experience this Valentines Day is found in the great love letter that is the Bible, where we are told that the God who Himself is love, in love gave up His Son for the world.