During the month of February I'll be blogging off and on about what true love looks like. This first part is about God's Love...first because without it, there is no other kind of love.
The first love I remember experiencing was of course the love of my parents and because I was raised in a home with parents that knew about God and had a relationship with Him, from an early age I learned about Jesus (God's son) love for me. From singing Jesus Loves Me, Every Day with Jesus is Sweeter than the Day Before and The B-I-B-L-E...to attending church and Sunday School weekly, I heard the message loud and clear. God loved me.
At the young age of five I began understanding a little about this kind of unconditional love and by the age of twelve I knew beyond a doubt that this perfect, sacrificial, never-ending love that God had for me was nothing that even my good parents could compare with. And since that time it seems I keep discovering more and more of what God's love for me looks like.
- His love is unconditional....it's not based on what I've done or what I'm going to do. He loves me. Period. That's it. And that's my favorite. What I choose to do in return for His love is purely an offering and doesn't gain me any more love than the next gal. God doesn't play favorites...he plays intimates...what I gain from growing more in love with Him has nothing to do with Him loving me more and everything to do with me getting to know Him more intimately. He cannot love me more than He does today or did yesterday because that would mean somehow His love was deficient then or in the future...and that would contradict His character...that He is fully everything always.
- His love changes me....knowing more about who He is and how He loves makes me want to love better. He loved me first....He loved me unconditionally...He loved me in spite of the ugliness of my sin nature. He loved me knowing that I would betray Him, disappoint Him, doubt Him and fail Him. What a love to aspire to give! As I grow to know Him, I realize just how enormous this love is. I see my inadequacies and realize that no matter how I fail to measure up, He still loves me. This is such a valuable lesson for me to transfer into my own relationships. Patience is essential. As a wife and mom, my love for Bruce and my kids will be much more perfected if I can learn to love like God loves me. His love changes me from quick-tempered and mouthy to patient and kind when I stop long enough to remember His example towards me.
-His love is worth sharing....with everyone. The homeless, the church member, the single mom, the disgruntled employee, the grocery checker, the president of the USA, the orphan, the drunkard, the student and everyone in-between. There is not one single person that doesn't deserve to hear of His great love...not the homosexual, the man with AIDS, the druggie, the pot smoking hippie, the naked tribal man in the jungles of the Philippines or the American college student at the finest left winged institution. The way the world finds out that we know about this God of love is BY our love.
John 13:35 says, By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
That's the way we are associated with Jesus....that's how other's know that we belong to Him...by our love...our Godly love towards them. It's not a weak love, it's not a pushover love, it's not a do whatever you want and never pay a consequence for your actions kind of love....no. It is a love that offers grace for each mistake, hope for every rotten self inflicted bad choice and peace for the soul that longs for more than sleepless nights of tossing and turning over the problems of this world.
He loves you just like that. NOW. Right this minute. This is the kind of love that can be yours for the asking. Too good to be true? Almost.....it's a one in an eternity kind of perfect love. That's my God's love....true love.
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