Redefiniton

Quick! First verse that comes to mind when you think about the love of God!

Was it John 3:16 by any chance?
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

Most people read this and they fixate their attention on “gave His only Son” and immediately jump to the cross and His suffering with a vague connotation of eternal life (heaven).
But what is at the heart and center of His goal – the ultimate purpose for which He gave His Son?
Because syntactically, the ultimate end of John 3:16 isn’t the crucifixion, that was the means by which the premise (God loved the world) is enacted, the destination and purpose of it all is that we might receive eternal life. John clarifies it in John 17:3
This is eternal life, that they know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

The essence of eternal life is the never ending knowing of God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
You can further confirm it in John 14:21
Whoever has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.

Put it all together and you get: That God so loved the world, that at the cost of His only Son’s life and suffering, He brought us into an everlasting knowing, admiring, loving, enjoying of Himself and Jesus. The love of God is the gift of Himself.

This should give us a new lens through which to view the love of God: He loves us not by sparing us death or suffering, or giving us health or wealth, but by showing Himself to us and giving Himself to us; by how much of Himself He reveals to us.

This is so crucial, yet, so easy to miss, because we can get caught up with our circumstances. If God loved me, then surely He’ll work everything out so that my life is just peachy!
We gloss over stories of tragedy and trials in the Bible: Job, Daniel, Jeremiah, Paul, Stephen, Jesus.
A perfect example of this is the story of Lazarus. John 11:1-44
Long story short: Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary, are a family loved by the Lord and close to Him. One day Lazarus becomes seriously ill so his sisters send word for Jesus to come, but He waits until Lazarus dies and then heads over. Mary, Martha, and the crowd question Jesus’ love with a variation of: “Lord, if You had been here my brother would not have died.” Then Jesus goes to the tomb and Lazarus’ decaying body is brought back to life.

But what makes this story so noteworthy is how Jesus responds to each of the doubts and questions.
To Martha, He responds by presenting to her profound spiritual truth: an explicit declaration of His Messiah-ship, of the promise to come, and a profession of faith only found elsewhere in Peter.
To Mary. He responds by showing His emotions, He was emotionally engaged and personal.
To the crowd, He reveals His love through the power of His action – the only biblical instance to that point where a decayed body is resurrected.

What can we take away from this? Jesus put them through this, He could have spoken a word of power and healed Lazarus the moment he heard the news, or He could have immediately left for Bethany instead of waiting until He knew Lazarus would die. But He put them through this:
This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.

He let Lazarus, His friend die. He let the sisters go through grief and doubt. But it was about the ultimate goal – that He would be glorified and through this and He might show and display His unfailing love to all involved.

“In the days of suffering, darkness and loss, and it seems our souls would give way, Jesus loved us – not first by taking away the suffering or the loss or the darkness, but first by giving us Himself in ways that could not have been ours without this painful season. If you demand that God love you the way the world expects to be loved in this life, you won’t know what it is to really be loved by God. The love of God is the gift of His glorious self… [and anger, unbelief, suspicion, and questioning can be the very things that keep us from seeing the glory of Christ in our pain.]”

If you can step away from what the world says that love is and step into how God demonstrates His love for us, it becomes a foundation for us; something the world can’t take away, circumstances can’t dim, and hardships can’t shake.

-Inspired by Pastor John Piper

Soli Deo Gloria