Practical Examples of Love

Recently, someone asked, how do you know God loves you practically without quoting Bible verses.

It was a pause and think moment for me. She was not asking for how you are alive, have food and clothes to eat e.t.c. but she was asking of love and what it is, like the rest of us.

My discovery of God’s practical love was found in examples… you know how you understand things more when your teacher uses examples and stories as illustration?

The first person to use this method is God, aptly continued in Jesus and His parables. He gave us varied examples in our everyday life to help us understand and appreciate what he has given us.

When you first heard God is your father what comes to mind?

Your earthly father or any physical father figure you have; if this father was loving/caring/generous e.t.c it becomes easy for you to see God as having those characteristics but if this your father figure was abusive, absent, cold e.t.c you will have issues trusting God or reconciling him with what the Bible says unless the Holy spirit does a healing work in you.

For instance I am the first born and my father being the first son had to take charge of his siblings education in a polygamous home.

when most of them were in school, I was in school also, so my pocket money was meager. I learned to manage.

I understood as an adult that my father ignored me even when I was crying because the money available had to sort several people’s upkeep also.

Then I had developed the mindset of always managing and never bothering to ask for more cos it won’t come.

On the other hand, when my younger siblings were older my father’s responsibilities had reduced, so he could afford to give over and beyond their needs, my father was their ATM/sugar daddy so they mirror this relationship with God and life till date;

My sisters see life and God as their ATM, expects favour and gets it.

While I struggle to get there and need the Holy Spirit to have a balanced view, it came easily to her because of the examples we had.

Our fathers are examples of God the father if you have not heard of a father before how will you understand when God says I am your father? The practical example of God’s love as a father is in our earthly father. Mothers exemplify the love and relationship with the Holy Spirit.

This applies to marriage also;

The primary aim of marriage is to understand what God means when He calls us the bride of Christ (both men/women).

Experiencing your husband’s wholesome love and vice versa helps both of you and the people who see your marriage understand what it means to be the bride of Christ. The wholesome and sweet love of marriage an example of his deep deep love for us as our groom/husband.

Having children exemplify how he feels for us as his children.

This examples is in friendship too, God introduced friendship so we can understand what He means when He calls us friends, siblings so we can understand Jesus as the first born son and our brother, lawyer to understand Jesus as our advocate, Judge to understand God as the perfect judge, a boss to understand God as master of all and so on…

Most of us don’t understand this but the devil does so he introduces fake aka twisted version e.g, abusive parent and spouses, troubled marriages, wicked siblings, jealous and gossiping friends, corrupt lawyers/judges’ e.t.c to confuse and make us reject this love offered to us on a platter…

If your only experience with all these examples were the negative version, when you hear God is your friend, Father e. t.c, what you remember is your experience with your earthly example and your heart has trouble accepting him and what he has to offer.

Our whole existence is evangelism to show His love and heart for mankind, everything is a practical example of Jesus love but it has been warped by counterfeit… Restoration can only be found when we accept that we don’t know and allow the Holy Spirit through the Christ do the work in us.

What is love to you?

How have the examples around you warped your understanding of God’s love?