Cautious or Extravagant?

Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that. (Ephesians 5:1-2 MSG)

What is God doing? There are times we all ask that question, not really sure that God is in control, but trusting that he is, we still find ourselves asking what he could possibly be doing with what is going on around us. Watch what he does - that is a pretty specific instruction. We are to observe what he does because we learn best when we have an example of an expected action. God loves us - repeatedly, unconditionally, without doubt or regret. In the same manner, we are to love others, but we need to see his example in order to respond to others with this type of love, don't we? So, observe how he loves you by 'keeping company with him'. We might think we could just sense his love, but it is learned best at his feet.

Learn a life of love - our opinion as to what love is, how it acts, when it responds, what it avoids - all this is learned by example. We see it, feel it, sense it - we EXPERIENCE it. The love of God is meant to be experienced, and we are meant to learn from what we experience in Christ Jesus. Keep company with him. The more we spend time with him, the more we will experience the depth and breadth of his love. We will begin to see even actions such as correction and conviction as loving. We will not resist those actions quite as much because we will know they come from the heart of a loving father. Proper behavior is learned - it isn't accidental. As we begin to glean truth from his Word, sitting in his presence long enough for him to 'unpack' it for us, we begin to understand his heart and experience the intensity of his love.

Not cautious love, but extravagant love. We are prone to give and even receive cautious love. There is almost always some 'condition' behind the actions of the other person. Even the parent who soothes the crying child has a bit of selfish purpose behind those actions - they want a peacefulness to return! Yes, the parent loves the child, sometimes beyond what one thinks is possible, but not every action taken in caring for that child will be without selfish purpose. We want them to do well in school, so they will do well in the world, but also so they will be able to support themselves someday. We want them to eat their vegetables, so they will grow up strong, but we also don't want all the complications that come from their desire to eat candy all day long. 

Our love is a bit flawed at best. We try hard to exemplify 'goodness' in our loving actions, but we truly learn unselfish, unbiased, and unwavering love when we learn how God loves us and begin to exemplify that love. Love costs much - something we might have a hard time with because at the core of every heart is just a bit more selfishness than we might want to admit. We need God to show us where our human love places conditions on our actions and then show us how to remove all conditions, so we begin to love sacrificially and without bias. His love is learned - learned best while at his feet, pondering his actions. We might not realize how much our heart changes until we see we loved just a little bit like he shows us to love. Just sayin!