“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.“
Ephesians 4:32
February is sometimes called the month of love because it’s when Valentine’s Day is celebrated. The essence of Valentine’s Day is true love. It is supposed to be a day when people reaffirm their love and genuine affection for others. Valentine’s Day began as a celebration of a Christian Saint named Valentine. He was imprisoned, tortured, and executed for performing and upholding Christian marriage in 269 AD.
But today Valentines Day has become more of a secular celebration of friendship and romantic love. When asked what love means, it is likely that more people today can quote the famous line “love means never having to say you’re sorry” from the 1970 movie Love Story by Erich Segal than what the Bible says about love.
While the secular world may have its definition of love, it is not the same as God’s definition of love. The Bible teaches that “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.” (1 John 4:16). The Bible also says that “we love because God first loved us.” (1 John 4:19 ) As Christians, we acknowledge that our love comes from God. Therefore, it is God who defines what love truly is.
So, how exactly does God define love? The most common Greek word for love used in the New Testament is agape love. This is the highest form of love, and it means to choose to love someone. In other words, it’s loving someone for no other reason than they exist and are human just like us. In 1st Corinthians 13, Paul lays out several characteristics of God’s love – it is patient and kind, it does not envy or boast, it is not proud, rude, or self-seeking, it is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. And love never fails. We could probably stop right here, and most people usually do.
But the Bible also tells us that love is sacrificial (John 15:13), love is loving our enemies (Matthew 5:44), love is loving others as ourselves (Matthew 19:19), and that love is the fulfillment of the Law (Romans 13:10). These too are great indicators of the kind of love in our hearts that God desires us to have.
So, how do we know if we have God’s love in our heart? Jeremiah said that “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” (Jeremiah 17:9) Jesus added in Matthew 15:19, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts; murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.” We are all born with a sinner’s heart and loving others as God desires does not come naturally. However, overcoming our sinful nature with God’s love is something we must continually strive for as followers of Christ.
But there is one characteristic that exemplifies our love towards others more than any other – forgiveness! The simple, yet difficult, act of forgiveness can only happen if we are humble, kind, not proud or self-seeking, and truly love others as ourselves, including our enemies and those who have done wrong to us. Forgiveness is a choice, and when we choose to forgive, we develop a heart like His. But we first need God’s Holy Spirit in us to make that choice!
God said in 1 Samuel 16:7 that “The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” When God looks at our hearts, what does He see? Does He see humility, kindness, a love for others, and forgiveness? Or does He see evil thoughts, anger, malice, and pride? If we are honest, probably both! After all, we are still a fallen race.
God’s heart is a heart of forgiveness. He sacrificed His one and only Son so that we could be forgiven and reconciled to Him (John 3:16). Because he looks at the heart, God uses our ability to forgive as a measure of our love for Him and others. When Jesus was asked by Peter if seven times was enough for him to forgive someone, Jesus said “I tell you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.” (Matthew 18:22) Forgiveness is a priority and a reflection of a heart of love. We are commanded to forgive others as God forgave us in Christ! (Ephesians 4:32)
There was a song written in 1989 by Don Henley (of Eagle’s fame) about forgiveness that captures the essence of forgiveness as an act of love coming from the heart. The song describes a broken relationship that was his fault. The chorus declares “I’ve been trying to get down to the heart of the matter, but my will gets weak, and my thoughts seem to scatter, but I think it’s about forgiveness, forgiveness, even if, even if, you don’t love me anymore.” His lyrics recognize the need we all have to forgive even if we are not forgiven by others. The last line of the bridge declares, “life goes on, you keep carrying that anger, it’ll eat you up inside.” How true that is!
Jesus told a parable about an unmerciful servant in Matthew 18:21-35. In this parable Jesus is speaking to Peter and explaining how God views forgiveness. The parable tells of a king who forgave a large debt to one of his servants. However, this servant would not forgive a small debt a fellow servant owed him. Instead, he had the person thrown in prison until he could repay the debt. When the king found out, he was so angry at this servant whose debt he forgave that he had him tortured and thrown in prison until he could repay his debt. Jesus then says to Peter and his disciples that “This is how my Heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.” In other words, God takes our forgiveness of others very seriously and expects us to forgive others as he forgave us.
So, do we have forgiveness for others in our hearts? Have we forgiven people who have wronged us, or are we waiting for them to first apologize to us? God’s love cannot be in us if there is no forgiveness. God indeed looks in our hearts and measures it by our ability to love others and forgive others as He loved us and forgave us. Let us all seek to be forgiving people!