what "God loves you" actually means

Today in A Year with the Church Fathers, St Dionysius of Alexandria talks to us about temptation. And he says something I haven't thought of before. It was pretty cool. He says that God "tempts" us.

Now, before you start arguing with ol' Dionysius, hear him out. Every time he says God tempts someone, he puts (tests) in parentheses. Here's an example: God led Jesus (by the Holy Spirit) into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. God didn't lead Jesus into sin. He put Him in a place where He would face a test. A challenge. To face temptation and overcome it. Dionysius mentions that Abraham faced the same type of test.

And that, in my mind, helps me to understand part of the Lord's Prayer that I've always wondered about. "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." It goes hand in hand with Jesus telling His disciples to pray that they "will not be put to the test." It seems that just as God can lead us into a place where we will face a test, He can also lead us away from it. And Jesus encourages us to pray that we be spared these tests.

This leads to a realization I had today, which was pretty profound, I thought. It seems very simple... but I never put it together this way before. I was thinking about God loving us. And God BEING love. And I realized that I had been thinking of "love" the wrong way all my life in this regard. See, I've known for years that when Jesus tells us to love our neighbor, and even our enemy, He wasn't saying that we should have warm fuzzy happy feelings about them. He meant that we should "will their good." Love, as DCTalk reminded us in the 90's, is a verb. Yes, when we talk about loving our family or our friends, it is also an emotion. But when we talk about loving the way Jesus meant when He said the greatest commandment is to love God and love other people, He didn't mean "have emotions." He meant do good for them. Help them. Pray for them. Will their good.

Well... you'd THINK that I would put 2 and 2 together. But I never have, until today. I've always thought of "God loves you" as meaning that He cares about us. That He has loving feelings towards us. I never, until today, realized that when "God loves you," love is still a verb. It means He is willing our good. And that means He's doing things for us. He's blessing us. He's giving us His presence, and His Bible, and prayer, so that our lives can be better. His love for us is an action.

And our love for Him is also supposed to be an action. It's still a verb. When we love God, as the GREATEST COMMANDMENT in the whole BIBLE tells us to... it doesn't mean have warm happy feelings about God. It doesn't mean emotions. It means actions. It means doing things, in cooperation with Him, to make the world a better place. When He asked Peter, "Do you love Me?" and Peter said, "Yes, Lord." He said, "Feed my sheep."  Why? Because that's how we love God. By feeding His sheep. Taking care of His children. We love God by loving other people. And love... is a verb.

God, thanks for teaching us what love really means. Help us love You the way You love us. In actions.