Love
To put it simply, the purpose of life is found in love and through love. It is in the knowledge and reception of love that we acknowledge the existence of a meaningful and purposeful power outside of our own existence. What words, or what methods of man, can truly capture the limitless breadth and glory of such a conviction like love? The Creator effortlessly weaves Himself into our lives when we seek, give, and receive love; it is such a pure and tangible piece of evidence for God, yet so mysterious as to be incapable of being fully defined.
1) Love gives purpose to everything in life
If we debase the power of love to just being a series of neurons firing off within our brain--that we are nothing more than a bundle of nerves and flesh, by-chance creating a world-defying chemical signal in our brains (though, even from an atheistic standpoint, the fact our human bodies are capable of harboring something like love is immeasurably impressive)--then we ultimately devalue the power that love has within us and within our lives, and limit love to the inadequacies of our own minds.
This is not taking a stance of ignorance and throwing away our understanding of science and it’s uses; but we have to understand that science (or anything in life, for that matter) without love, does not provide the answers we seek in life--rather, it conceals them. We have seen that when science was absent of love, it brought about terrible destruction and death; weapons of warfare, the nuclear bomb, events like the Holocaust, the methods of abortion--of which, over 61 million babies have been aborted since Roe V. Wade in 1973 (LifeNews, January 10, 2020).
Whatever your stance may be on abortion, out of the 61.6 million aborted unborn babies, there is a high chance many of them would have led lives containing love of their own. From this context, they never even got the chance to experience the questions of this world, and possibly find that answer we all seek--love.
When we look at the life of Jesus Christ--the epitome of what it means to love and serve others before ourselves--we see His own “hopeless” and lowly circumstance that He was born into: actively being searched for by King Herod to be killed, being born into a family with nothing, and having been conceived in a lowly stable (Matthew 2:13-15; Luke 2:7; Luke 1:48). In many ways, Jesus’s position in life when He entered into the world seemed grim; but God provides hope when there seems to be no hope, and brings life even when it seems impossible. God equips us to live life with love, despite any situation we are brought into or enter in.
When we realize and appreciate the importance of love within our lives, and how--at life’s core--we are meant to live in love with God and with one another; then we realize the whole purpose of it all. That despite the loveless acts that can be made against us every day in all kinds of ways; despite the feelings we struggle with in our own hearts and minds; God ultimately demonstrated the greatest act of love by sending His Son to save us from these chains, and by His example we can help others find that same answer.
2) The tale of the two wolves
Jesus Christ came down to free us from a darkness that is only capable of destroying love. In the messiness of sin, love fails to flourish, and in sin, our ability to love others is steadily destroyed as well. The great war of our lives, and the same war that has been fought by every past life and every life to come, is the war between love and hate. There is one side that only creates love and life, and there is another side that creates only hatred and death.
It is this battle between love and hatred within ourselves that is constantly being fought, whether we acknowledge it or not. The struggle that Paul addresses in Ephesians: “we do not struggle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this world’s darkness, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”--is addressing the Satanic side of evil that is actively seeking to destroy us (Ephesians 6:12).
There is a reason that Jesus says in Him we can turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God; that there is forgiveness in His name. Do you think forgiveness is something that comes from Satan? God demonstrates His awesome love and power in the grace and mercy He shows us; that while we were His enemies, He died and rose again to save us.
There is nothing that exemplifies the power of love then when it moves someone to give their life for another person. With God, He demonstrates His perfect and all-encompassing love through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, given for ALL people. How unfathomable is this love: to give His life for every soul to have ever lived, and to take upon any and every sin we have ever committed--and yet, the only price we have to pay is believing in His name.
3) God is love
The cool part about love, however, is that it is not a stagnant force. Since God is love, love is something that promotes and fosters itself naturally when it is tended to. In our own actions, a simple gauge to determine how well we are walking in love must be found in our relationships with others. God moves and works through people, and if our relationships with the people in our lives demonstrate disharmony and consistent strife, then something is wrong within us.
Jesus Christ calls us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44). It is one thing to love people who you like and want to love, but loving people who might hate you or want to do you harm is another thing entirely. This is one of the great dividers that sets Jesus Christ apart from everything. The reality of Jesus’s sacrifice, and the inconceivable truth of God, is this: that He gave His life ENTIRELY for His enemies. The crazy thing about God, is that not one person is holy aside from Him--literally, we are all His enemies! And God knows this, but still wants us to realize His love and walk in relationship with Him, because it is only through Him that we can be called Sons and Daughters of God.
When Jesus defeated the powers of evil, hatred, and death on the Cross at Calvary, He personally stepped in to take our crucifixion; that we would not have to bear the punishment of that sin. And so, when we believe in the name of Jesus Christ and pick up our cross to follow Him, God does not see us in our failures and mistakes of sin anymore--Jesus has taken it upon Himself. And when Jesus takes upon Himself our mistakes and failures, we walk away free. It is in this freedom that God sees us and looks upon us as He would to Jesus, and that we can come boldly before the throne of the God of all love, truth, and joy.
4) God's love never runs out
Moreover, God’s love never runs out. Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient for all of our acts of rebellion against God--every act of evil (however small or large) we have ever made, and every act of evil we will ever make--and fully redeems us from the side of darkness, to the side of light, love, and life.
It doesn't matter who you are, we all need love in our lives, and to neglect ourselves of this need neglects us of the true meaning of life. Love helps us press on, and sometimes it is all we have to hold on to. Though the conditions of our hearts are many, and the troubles we face are diverse, Christ provides a puzzle piece that only He can give.
So often we try to force puzzle pieces into the holes of our hearts that do not belong there. The bottom line is that we all have questions, and once we have stopped seeking the answer, we have lost life’s purpose. The answer God gives is in Jesus Christ. It is out in the open and it is available for anyone to receive. Unlike the consumerist culture we live in, God has given it to us freely out of His own love for us.
Once our answer becomes Jesus Christ, the pen of our lives is slowly passed over to the true Author, and it is He alone who is equipped to write out our destinies, and to fulfill the deepest longings of love in our hearts. If you think about it, one’s opinion on love is oftentimes paralleled with one’s viewpoint on God. If you don’t believe in love, how can you believe in God? They are one and the same.
We will never fully understand God in this life, and we will never be able to truly comprehend Him and all He does in this world. But the point is not striving to define God or place Him in a test tube--if this is your goal, you will fail. The point is to allow this Being of love to change your heart and bring you into relationship with Him. Thinking about it, I don’t even understand most people in this world, or how we even work within ourselves--so how am I supposed to understand a God who is beyond our comprehension? Most things in this world are beyond my comprehension. Yet despite this, God makes Himself known in the most personal way within our hearts: through our love.
We must not let the world cloud our vision, or let the prides we hold in our heart prevent us from finding God’s truth. We were made in His image, and thus we are meant to replicate the perfect and good power of love in all we do. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love; and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them (1 John 4:8; 1 John 4:16). Jesus loves you more than you’ll ever understand in this life; so much so, that God found you worth giving everything for.
