“He loves me. He loves me not…
He loves me. He loves me not.
He loves me… HE LOVES ME!
Anybody else feeling nostalgic? As a little girl I would pick up a flower and pluck away the petals, one by one, hoping to find out if the boy who sat next to me in art class really truly loved me or not. And if I didn’t like the answer that the flower’s petals gave, I could always try again tomorrow.
And although I’ve grown up some since then, it doesn’t seem as though much has changed.
We have been conditioned to believe that…
love is a fleeting feeling,
and that it can come and go.
We can fall IN love, but we can just as easily fall OUT of love.
Love is romantic and beautiful, and should never be messy or rough around the edges.
Love is a safe place where you will never feel pain or sorrow.
Love means always being happy.
If it becomes a challenge to love someone, the solution must be to walk away.
Love is fragile, weak, circumstantial and emotive.
But what if , instead of buying into what the world tells us “true love” looks like, we ask Jesus what He thinks? His WORD tells us that..
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.
I’ve heard those words too many times to count. But I can’t remember the last time I actually took them to heart or attempted to apply them to my relationships with others– or to my relationship with the Lord Himself. So in my quiet time, I asked the Lord to show me His definition of love.
As I sat there at the feet of Jesus, He lifted my chin, took my hand and placed it over His heart. He said to me,
“My beautiful daughter, this is my heart that beats forever, unconditionally, mercifully, longingly, sacrificially, faithfully, and joyfully FOR YOU. I love you. I am so deeply IN LOVE with you. Day by day as you learn to receive my love, go and love others with this same love. It is only once you have truly accepted my perfect love that you will find it in yourself to love others the way you were created to.”
Yes, I want to fall in love. Yes I want the butterflies and the can’t eat, can’t sleep, you are all I can think about type love. Yes, I want to be happy, and I want a love that is romantic and beautiful and full of laughter and smiles.
But that is just what’s on the surface.
More than all of that, I want to learn how to love forever, unconditionally, mercifully, longingly, sacrificially, faithfully and joyfully.
Before ever pursuing any other love in this life, I want my heart to belong to Jesus.
I want Him to show me what true love is…
I want Him to teach me what it looks like to honor and encourage others in love… and how to commit to loving someone, even when the “feeling” of love seems to have disappeared. I want to learn how to fight for love… how to wake up each day and choose to love someone simply because that is what the Lord has asked me to do. My heart’s desire is to be able to love others the way that Jesus loves me… forever, unconditionally, mercifully, longingly, sacrificially, faithfully and joyfully.
Is your heart seeking the true love of your Creator? Or has it been distracted by the weak, emotive, fleeting worldly versions of false love that are all around us? Fix your eyes on Jesus today, knowing that it is only because He first loved us that we are able to love one another.
“This is love; not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.” -1 John 4:10-12
