I have been disheartened by what has been happening in the world around me through the people that I love dearly. Many of these people love God and are educated in the scriptures. These are good people. While listening and reading things I kept hearing God tell me that the focus should be on The Character of God and how we should all aim to be like. I must be real here; I have not paid much attention to what the character of God is like. It was not spoken of by any of the ministers in the church I grew up in or even the people I connect with. That gave me insight on where I lacked in my knowledge of how God wants my character to be. This post is not about blasting anyone or manipulating people into having the same opinions as me. I want to share scripture of what the character of God is and what my thoughts are on these scriptures and what I am learning. I just thought that like me others might not have given it much thought to the character of God. During my research on the character of God I found some scriptures that spoke to me and I am going to give the reference and write the scripture out and then give my commentary. There are a lot of scriptures and if I did it all in one post it would be 500 pages, so I am going to focus one scripture a post until I have all the characteristics of God. I am using the New Living Translation that I have on my Bible App. Just letting you know because different translations can be different wording and can be confusing.
God is Love: Scripture 1 John 4: 7-10 “Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.”
I started with love because this is one of the key things that I feel is missing. Love does not call someone a Replusion or Demistupid or any of the names that have been yelled, cruelly at each other. When Jesus yelled at the people Vipers or even Devil, he was not calling them that, he was speaking about their actions not them personally. There is a difference. You can be angry and not sin. You can be angry with someone and still love them. You can not agree with someone on politics and still love them. We do not have to all agree. The only thing we have to agree as Christians, especially with other Christians is that Jesus is the Son of God and He died for our sins and we have to accept him into our hearts. That is the only requirement to be a part of God’s family. The rest is just opinions because there are so many different translations from the Greek and Hebrew, and everyone translates it differently and no one agrees. Yet, we are cruel and disrespectful, and even murderous towards each other. Is that the character of God? That is not love. That is fear taking over because if someone does not agree with me than they cannot be a part of my tribe. Jesus with love accepted those who were outside of the tribe. The woman at the well is one example. Another example is the lady who had the issue of blood who broke the Jewish law to touch Jesus and be out on the street and on her period. Jesus loved them and accepted them flaws and all. Love also knows that sometimes the consequences of someone’s actions need to happen. If someone is being a predator then they need to be held accountable. I am not saying people should not be punished or held accountable for their actions. Just that abuse should not be tolerated. We are not perfect, and we need to remember that about ourselves and therefore, let the punishment fit the sin.
Love is one of those things that is hard for me. Love has not always been chocolate and peonies. It has been racked with abuse from family members who proclaim they love me but ripped my heart out and betrayed my trust. I know I am not alone in that. Reading 1 John love looks like sacrifice. God sacrificed himself out of love for me so that I can have eternal life. Love takes sacrifice. The sacrifice is letting go of our egos and think about others and that is not an easy thing to do because I know that I can be selfish. Part of knowing the characteristics of God is to aim to be like him. I want to love like He does. Love without thinking about the sacrifices that I am making to love someone or the wounds I may receive because I love them. I aim to love without gaining something in return. That simple. Simple things can be the hardest to do. Therefore love is not easy.
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