If you were to look in a dictionary at the definition of love you would find several ways of expressing it. I did an AI search and came back with the following: “Love is a strong feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection for someone, often characterized by care, passion, and connection. It can manifest in various forms, including familial, romantic, and platonic relationships.”
While all of these types of love are true the AI search leaves out the deepest form of love which we find in the Scriptures. I like how John Stott defines love when he links it to a place: “If we are looking for a definition of love, we should look not in a dictionary, but at Calvary.”[1] For you see real biblical love transcends the normal dictionary definition and is represented by the Greek word agape. And there can be no greater demonstration of this selfless love than what happened at Calvary. At Calvary the perfect and sinless Son of God, Jesus Christ, took on your sins and mine and sacrificed His own life to free us from the bondage of sin and our certain date with eternal separation from God in a literal hell. At Calvary perfection took on imperfection, sinlessness took on sin, and life took on death all because Jesus loved you so much.
Another way to look at this amazing love is by the value that God placed on you. You see God loves and values you so much that He was willing to sacrifice His own Son so you could enter back into that special relationship with Him that Adam and Eve originally had back in the Garden of Eden. I often like to say that next to the Trinity, we are the most valuable and precious things in the universe.
Scripture reveals how deeply God loves and values us: we are made in His image (Genesis 1:26), are a treasured possession to God (Deuteronomy 14:2, NIV), are a joint heir with Christ (Romans 8:16-17), are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people (1 Peter 2:9), and are so special that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you (1 Corinthians 3:16)!
While love can often have great feelings of affection toward others, the deeper Christlike love is characterized by the word commitment. Sadly, in our world, when the feelings we have for someone go, love often goes out the window. But when we love as Jesus taught us to love, our commitment to others remains strong and vibrant even when our feelings fade. And praise God it is because of Christ’s commitment to love us that we can be certain that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ (Romans 8:38-39)!
What a love, what a Savior, and what a blessing to know that we are of such infinite value to Jesus that we as Christians will be able to spend eternity with Christ surrounded and enveloped in His love!
[1] John Stott – If we are looking for a definition of love, we…