It began in love and is sustained by love.
Anything good we can desire or want has to have its core in love otherwise it is empty. Love brought you into this world. Understanding Love in its fullest meaning is not a one time lesson, its a journey we embark on the moment we are conceived. The love connection an unborn child has with the mother is indescribable, it is out of this world, and in my understanding has God written all over it. God is LOVE and because we are created in His image and likeness, we are wired to give and receive love. Love is the language understood by all people regardless of color, race, location and time.
If LOVE is that important or powerful why are pain and hurt always affiliated with it? Sayings like love hurts, love is pain are not too far off from the reality of loving genuinely. But think about it and replace Love with God in those statements. Love hurts would be GOD hurts , or Love is pain to GOD is pain!! Does it make sense? No , at least not to me. It does not.
Who is God?
God is love. Once you have experienced and known the love of God, you know that His is the real love we need. No one can love us as He does. We can only know and receive true love when it is rooted in GOD, when He is the source of the Love we are receiving or giving. Otherwise its a ‘fake’ love if i may dare describe it. God being LOVE, is the only true source of the kind of love we all need. No one is exempt from receiving His love and being a conduit of this Love to the world.
What is love?
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8 NIV)
For the longest time, i approached this scripture as a thumb rule of how i ought to love people. It was working just fine learning to love myself first then loving the people God brought my way; family, friends and acquaintances. But soon as people became difficult to love, subconsciously i put loving them on hold. I pressed pause, and many times even never went back to press play again. Soon as things got complicated or messy while loving them , i walked away. That is how terribly i was failing at loving people God’s way.
Love God and Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
God in His mercy has been teaching me about Love. His Love, and pointing out how i have not fully accepted His invitation to love. Being in a foreign country with no close family or friends around checked my ‘love meter’ in a very real way. All of a sudden i am surrounded by strangers from all walks of life, and i am not able to love them , to care to know them and walk in God’s love with them. My love meter is running on low and many times even on empty. God’s presence in my life wants to love and connect with other people even strangers, that i may see once in my lifetime. His love is not dependent on how long this person will be in my life , or how important or not important they are to me. His love is unconditional. If My love gets conditional, it means i have not fully comprehended the vastness of the Love He has for me. His purpose for my life is rooted in my ability to LOVE as He loves me.
‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him will never perish but have eternal life.’ ~ John 3:16.
The bar Christ set for the kind of love He has for us is very High. Love even to the point of death. That is how much God has loved us and calls us to love.
Prayer
Father God I thank you for loving us unconditionally, while we were still sinners, way before we got to know you. Lord I pray today that we as a body of Christ may grow in receiving your love AND loving others just as you have loved us. Help us to see ourselves as you see us, and to see others as you see them. Give us eyes with lenses of your love that we may be a conduit and vessel of this love to all your people. Grow us in your love my God i pray. AMEN.