The Love Book: How To Know God And Be Like Him

By Brenton Williams

The premise of this book is that God is love. That is the most complete and trustworthy definition of His being. Everything that God is, IS love. Everything that God does comes from love.
If believers are to be like Him they also need to understand and become love. That’s what this book sets out to do -- explain what love really is and help believers gain that love for themselves.
All the aspects of love are covered and the various chapters encourage believers to develop love in their own lives so that they can become living expressions of a loving God. Relationships are the key to doing that and the author shows how love grows from interacting with others.
Simply written and easy to understand, this book will give any believer insights into knowing God and becoming like Him.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Brenton Williams
• Release date: Nov 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301978083

Brenton Williams

Brenton Williams was born in 1947 to non-christian parents and, apart from attending a local Sunday School, had no Christian faith or beliefs.He met his wife, Coral, in 1970 who was a member of The Salvation Army and converted that year. He joined The Salvation Army as a member and in 1975 felt a call from God to full-time ministry. He and his wife trained and became Salvation Army Officers for 11 years moving around New Zealand to various posts.His search for truth led him to question some of the tenets of the Army and in 1984 he left The Salvation Army to start a small charismatic group where he still ministers today.The truths in his books are based on first-hand experience and a desire to discover a real and true faith. Central to that is a close and intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ. His heart desire is to help other believers come to know Jesus as a friend and lover and thereby prepare them for an eternity of wedded bliss with their chosen bridegroom.

Book preview

The Love Book

By Brenton Williams

Copyright 2012 Brenton Williams.

Unless otherwise stated, scriptures are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE. Copyright. The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1977 La Habra, California.

Edited by Paul Corrigan's Editing Works!

ISBN: 9781301978083

Smashwords Edition

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 – God is love

Chapter 2 – God’s great purpose

Chapter 3 – Bi-dimensional beings

Chapter 4 – Developing eternal life

Chapter 5 – God’s life-source

Chapter 6 -- Changing our idea of God

Chapter 7 – Love’s vulnerability

Chapter 8 – The two halves of love

Chapter 9 – The two men in my life

Chapter 10 – Law or love?

Chapter 11 – The key to love

Chapter 12 – Learning from Jesus’ example

Chapter 13 – Things that get in the way

Chapter 14 – Biases

Chapter 15 – Producing love

Chapter 16 – The source of relationship problems

Chapter 17 – Difficult relationships

Chapter 18 – Love and obedience

Chapter 19 – Love and discipline

Chapter 20 – Walking in love

Chapter 21 – Love is provable and practical

Chapter 22 – The highest form of love

Chapter 23 – Rooted and grounded in love

Chapter 24 – The power of choices

Chapter 25 -- The great issue

Other books by Brenton Williams

Chapter 1 – God is love

And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. [1 John 4:16]

How do you sum up God? Simple. God is love. John describes him perfectly. All that God is and all that he does comes from love. God is never unloving and cannot act unlovingly. Even his judgement and discipline are expressions of his love [Hebrews 12:6]. Love is the essential nature at the heart of God’s being. Were he to lose all his other attributes — his power, omniscience, etc. — God would still be God so long as love remained. God is love. No other statement better describes his essential nature.

That means that we can trace everything we know about God or experience of him back to love. When God acts in power, love governs his actions. If it didn’t, things could get out of hand. Uncontrolled power is dangerous. God’s essential nature of love ensures that he will never abuse his unlimited power. Love decides whether God will extend his hand or withhold it. That’s why we sometimes don’t understand him. To understand why God behaves as he does we must understand love. Love alone motivates and rules him. It stands behind everything that he is and does.

God has proved that love alone motivates him through one great act — the death and resurrection of his only son, Jesus. John tells us: For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. [John 3:16] Love alone caused God to do that. He selflessly laid down his own life through his son so that we might find a sin-free way of life. Love left him no other choice. Someone had to atone for people’s sin. God alone was capable of doing that and love impelled him to action. That selfless act of love shows that God will withhold nothing in his efforts to love us and bring us into a love relationship with him.

But God is a spirit and therefore intangible to our physical senses. We cannot see, touch, or experience him physically. God understands that. So that we can see more clearly what his love is like, God gave us Jesus as an example. He is the radiance of His [God’s] glory and the exact representation of His nature . . . . [Hebrews 1:3] To see what love is like close up we have only to look at Jesus. He is the physical expression of God’s intangible essential nature. Jesus said that he and the Father were one [John 10:30] and that those who had seen him had seen the Father [John 14:9]. We can see what love in action is like through the stories of Jesus’ life and ministry recorded in the Gospels. In Jesus, God’s love becomes tangible and real.

Not only is God love, and not only is Jesus the physical expression of that love, but God is creating a people of love, as well. When God created the first people he stated his purpose clearly: Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; . . . . [Genesis 1:26] God always intended that people would share his essential nature. That plan came unstuck when the first people chose to disobey him. They did not act from love and therefore gained a different nature from God’s. Their lives became filled with sin and selfishness, and all people since have suffered the same fate. Self-interest lies at the heart of our essential nature.

To remedy that and put his plans for people back on track, God sent Jesus. He became a second Adam, died as the substitute for our sinful essential nature, and opened the way for us to gain a new life with a new nature. Believers can now be re-created in God’s image. Just as love stands behind all that God is and does, so love should stand behind all that believers are and do. Believers are to show the world the reality of God’s love just as Jesus did. That they love each other with a true and pure love is proof that God exists and that Jesus is his Son [John 13:35]. The people whom God has chosen and brought into his family are to be the present-day proof that God is love — just as Jesus was when he walked the earth.

Because that’s what God intends, it is vital that we learn how to love as God loves. That’s the purpose of this book. We will explore God’s love with the goal of equipping ourselves with the same love. Before we start one more thing needs to be said. We must fix in our minds and hearts the importance of gaining God’s love for ourselves. We know God for two things — his love and his power. If we reach only for his love and disregard his power we become a people of good deeds and kind words but little else. If we reach only for his power, we become miracle-workers without the means to minister comfort to the heart-needs around us. Love without power is meaningless; power without love is dangerous.

For too long believers have focused on the wrong thing. Power has been their goal, not love. I have attended many seminars on spiritual gifts, but I have never been to a love seminar. That’s because love cannot be learned in a seminar — it takes years of consistent learning to become proficient at love. The disciples learned quickly how to preach the gospel and heal the sick, but love’s lessons proved more difficult to gain. All the power of three years ministry with Jesus did not enable one of them to stand with him in his hour of real need. They all forsook him and fled to save their own skins — even Peter, who had so boldly declared he would never leave Jesus. After the resurrection, Jesus didn’t question Peter’s ability to work wonders. He wanted to know if Peter truly loved him.

The Corinthian church suffered from a similar problem. They excelled in the spiritual gifts, but fell short on love. Paul had to write them a stern letter pointing out their shortcomings. He stated clearly that love was more important than power and urged them to pursue love. He said that an emphasis on power was childish. The Corinthians needed to learn love to become mature. Love coupled with power would make them effective partners in the gospel’s work.

In seeking to become like God, we must keep a balance between love and power. Paul says to the Corinthians: Pursue love, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophecy. [1 Corinthians 14:1] We are to pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts [demonstrations of God’s power]. Love is an eternal, and therefore abiding, thing [1 Corinthians 13:13], whereas spiritual gifts will pass away [1 Corinthians 13:8]. Love is, therefore, greater than power, and should be our priority, but we should allow God to show his power through us by spiritual gifts.

So, God’s people must pursue love and show his power, but love must be the focus, not power. The Revised Standard Version translates 1 Corinthians 14:1 as: Make love your aim, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts . . . . Let’s determine to do just that — make love our aim, and earnestly desire spiritual gifts.

Chapter 2 – God’s great purpose

For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. [Ephesians 5:31-32]

Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready. [Revelation 19:7]

I wonder if you share a quirk of mine? When I’m about half-way through reading a novel I like to turn to the last few pages to see how it turns out. Knowing the ending doesn’t spoil the rest of the story. Instead, it increases my enjoyment of how the author turns events so that the ending becomes real. Sometimes the ending I read seems impossible compared with the circumstances half-way through the book. That makes the second half of the story all the more exciting.

The climax of all that God has revealed to humanity is a wedding. That wedding ends the story that started in the Garden of God with Adam and Eve. God the Father and the myriads of holy angels who inhabit the heavenly realm will be present. They will witness the joining of Jesus — the only Son of God — to the perfect bride the Father has chosen for him. By then the last trace of the rebellion and its effect on the earthly and heavenly realms will be gone. A new heaven and a new earth will exist and the holy city will have descended out of heaven. All the events recorded in The Revelation to John will be complete and the incredible ending to the story of mankind will become real. Jesus and his bride will begin an eternal marriage, the story of which has yet to be written.

Since God started creating our physical realm he has worked towards only one goal. In every generation since Adam and Eve he has laboured to prepare an eternal companion for his Son. He is creating that companion from all the men and women of faith throughout history who walk in his will and please him. Noah will be there on the wedding day. So will Abraham, and Paul of Tarsus. I plan to be there and I guess that you do, too. Each faithful soul will have a function to perform in ministering to and for Jesus throughout eternity.

Because we live in the physical realm of time and space we forget that God is eternal. We think of three score years and ten, whereas God does not. What seems like a long period to us is but an instant to him [Psalm 90:4]. When we join his family we become eternal beings, too. He gives us eternal life and has eternal things for us to do. We often suffer from short-sightedness because time has bound us for most of our physical lives. We need to grasp hold of an eternal view if we are to become the companion God wants for Jesus.

I wrote something once that helps me see things from an eternal view:

I AM AN ETERNAL CREATION

1. I am an eternal creation. God chose me before the foundation of the world to be one of his true children walking in blamelessness and holiness [Ephesians 1:4-5]. He hid my life in Christ until the time came for me to appear in this physical realm.

2. When the time was right, God sent his eternal word wrapped in flesh and manifested him as his only Son — Jesus. He came as an eternal son to accomplish an eternal purpose for an eternal Father. In the short time he lived in this realm Jesus achieved everything the Father planned for him [John 19:30]. Having obtained a good testimony from the Father he has returned to the eternal realms and now sits at the right hand of God in majesty and glory, reigning over heaven and earth.

3. In the same way God chose to manifest me now in this physical realm and I have things to accomplish for him. Like Jesus, I am an eternal child with eternal purposes to accomplish for my eternal Father. I am redeemed. God has forgiven my sins, lavished the riches of his grace on me, and is changing me into his own likeness. I have a destiny to fulfil and deeds to do that will bring honour and glory to him.

4. I do not care what the world thinks of me or says about me, for I do not belong to it. I love God and will serve him wholeheartedly as long as I live. I will preach the gospel, heal the sick, release the captives, or do any other thing he may ask me to do. I will not strive in this for I know God has already prepared the works I am to do. When I have done all that my Father gives me to do in this life, I shall return to the realms of eternity where I belong. There I will marry my Jesus and reign with him forever and ever.

I am an eternal child of God.

I have an eternal destiny to fulfil.

I am here by God’s will to accomplish his works.

When I have done that I will return from whence I came and be joined to Jesus in eternal marriage. I will then share unbroken, loving fellowship with him forever.

* * * *

What’s that got to do with love? Just this: one day everything