Dear Beloved of God,

  God is love. That’s what He is (I John 4:16). He’s the God of love (II Corinthians 13:11). Love has motivated all His words and actions throughout eternity. There is nothing unloving in any aspect of God’s character. It is a comfort for us to know that all of the Father’s thoughts, communications and dealings with us in our past, present and future are utterly based on His love.

  The idea of the love of God didn't start with our devotion toward Him (as important as that is); it began with His love toward us through Christ.

  We should never “get numb” to the subject of love. We can quickly get too much hate and fear, but we never get (or give) too much love. It should begin and end each day and guide everything in-between. It should be our inspiration and motivation for every thought of our mind, statement on our lips and deed of our hands. God’s love is not nebulous, amorphous, intangible or mushy. It’s the glue that holds together our entire Christian life. In the body of Christ, it’s the perfect unifying bond (Col. 3:14) and that which knits us together (Col. 2:2). If “somethin’ ain’t right,” then there’s often a lack of love somewhere… a characteristic of love that we’re ignoring (I Cor. 13). Living more love makes us more like Christ.

   Would you like to actually see the love of God? We see that love every time we observe a believer doing the will of God. Not too complicated. Would you like to actually hear the love of God? We hear that love every time we listen to a believer speaking the truth of the Word. Pretty simple.

   How do I walk in love in a given situation? One way to explain it is by these two steps:

1) ASK, “WHAT DOES GOD WANT?”

   We determine what God’s will is in a situation. That identifies the truth to us. It’s another way of asking, “What would Jesus do?”, “What’s the loving thing to do?” or “What does the Word say?”

   Without knowing God’s will, we won’t know what is the loving thing to do in a situation. By the Scripture and the spirit within, we can determine “what God wants.”

2) DECIDE TO DO

   Once we determine what God’s will is, then doing it IS LOVE. That’s what the love of God IS in our lives… obeying God, doing the Word, acting on what He wants, bringing the desires of heaven into this horizontal earth. When we decide to act on the will and Word, we are giving concretion and form to God’s love.

   In 1965, The Righteous Brothers produced a song that crooned, “You’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’…” When we make decisions based on God’s love, we often may feel good about it. When we offer a loving word to someone, our mood or sentiment is often affected. When we sacrifice personal time to do something out of love, our emotions are frequently triggered. The mistake is to think of the feeling as the love of God itself; but love itself is not the feeling.

  The decision to do what’s right is the love. Any resulting feelings are a nice bi-product of the decision to love. Love is a devotion to act on the truth. It is a determination to do the will of God. It is a conviction to do His good pleasure. Love is our commitment to choose truth over pleasure, over pressure or over subtle fear-motivation. It is making a decision to subject our will to His and to act accordingly, whether or not we feel like it. We don’t always feel like keeping His commandments. By his senses, Jesus didn’t necessarily feel like allowing his own torture and death. Love, not nails, held him on the cross. We shouldn’t wait to feel like loving before we act lovingly.

   When you turn on a generator, then you have electricity. When you turn it off, there is no juice. In deciding to do the Word, we have love. The love of God is present when the Word of God is believed. Everybody makes decisions. When we make a decision to think, to say or to do something based on God’s will, then we’ve brought His love into our world. His word, will and love are uniquely interwoven. In love, we will be able to clarify what matters and what doesn’t matter; when to act and what action to take. The wisdom in our choices increases as we consistently seek to do God’s will.

   So, in just two steps we find out how to walk in love: 1) determine what God wants, and 2) do it. Not too tough to walk in love, eh?

In His love, Kevin Guigou