1 John 4: 8
The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
God is love, not thought. That means that He is not in our brains. This is a heart thing. I don’t like it any more than you do. I wish I could be very academic about this whole “God” thing but it is fruitless and Jesus told us to go and bear fruit. We need to have an experiential knowledge of God’s love. What does that mean? We must know this love in our hearts. We must experience it. You can study love with your vast intellect until you turn blue but you will never understand it until you allow it to penetrate your heart and you finally experience the fullness of love. God is love so the only way you can ever experience Him is to let love reign supreme in your life. In order to do that, you have to let your heart play the leading role. It does not matter how smart we are. You may have a Mensa IQ but when it comes down to the bottom line that great intellect just won’t cut it. You don’t comprehend love with your mind. You can only have a true understanding of love when you let your heart take the lead. So if we are going to know God, if we are ever going to understand His unfathomable riches we are going to have to learn to hear Him with our hearts. We must learn to seek Him with our hearts rather than our minds and we must allow His Word to penetrate, not our thinking, but rather our feelings and our believing. Honestly, in order to be a true Christian we must engage our hearts.
I want you to know that I cannot think of any more uncomfortable news to have to receive personally but I have heard so much about the heart lately that if Balaam’s donkey came up to me and brayed, “Heart,” I don’t think I would even be surprised. There is a reason that God has filled the environment with heart language. He is trying to reach us on the level where He can change our lives.
Since God is love the only way we will ever come to know Him is to engage our hearts. Love is not of the mind and cannot be comprehended by the gray matter. It takes a beating heart pumping warm, red blood to receive love. Everything God says is love. Every answer you need is love. Therefore, in order for us to receive God, the love of God, blessings and answers we must allow our hearts to become places of openness and conversation. How do you do that? I don’t know yet. I am still working it out myself but I know that the more I allow my heart to live and to be free from the shackles of my mind, the more life and love God is able to pump into me. God is love. Love is a condition of the heart. If we want to know God then we are going to have to let Him speak to our hearts. It may be uncomfortable for some of us but we really are going to be so glad we opened up and let Him in. Be blessed!