We were made for love. For those of you who have lived your lives wondering why you were made, wondering what your purpose is, you were made for love. Pure, Holy, untainted, love.
If we don’t have Love, we have nothing. (a)
Love sets you free, free from the expectations of others and from overwhelming expectations of yourself. Love sets you free from fear, fear of rejection, fear of never changing, fear of things never getting better.
Love gives you hope. Hope that with Love the best is always yet to come. Hope that sorrow might come, but it can never take permanent residence unless we allow it and claim it as truth. Sorrow when it overstays its welcome whispers lies, lies that things will never get better, that dreams will never come to pass. But LOVE says that sorrow may last for the night, but JOY comes in the morning. Therefor, sorrow can never be a sign of the end, but instead is a sign of the joy to come. It shows us that things can’t be over unless Joy has arrived. (b)
Love makes you bold. Bold to confront lies and to seek truth. (c) Lies about who you are and who others are, lies about your value, lies about your past and lies about your future.
Love makes you brave. Brave enough to fight for freedom not only for yourself, but for others. Then Love tells you that He will fight for you and that you need only to be still and rest in His finished work. (d,e)
Love has done everything that is necessary for freedom to be yours (f), then He fights for you and is your strength as you learn to walk in that freedom. As we continue to grow in that freedom, the only fighting that is left for you is to continue trusting and persevering as Love leads you into even greater freedom.
Love beckons you to renew your mind (g) because as Love teaches you how to live from love and acceptance instead of for love and acceptance, you have to constantly remind yourself that you already have those things and that you don’t have to earn them.
Love is a gift, a gift that beckons a response of acceptance from the receiver. Love does not require you to perform, earn, or achieve. Love is free.
Love compels you to share Him. Real Love is so good that you can’t help but to share Love with others. As you pursue love and grow in your understanding of Love, your stability in Love becomes ever increasingly greater. Your faith in Love helps others to be strong when they need strength as they learn the truth about Love for themselves.
Love is a constant, living source of truth, joy, hope, peace, grace, and all things glorious and all of those things are contagious. Everybody wants those things, everybody wants Love. As Love continues to pour into you, from your overflow, others get awakened to love, too. That awakening is their freedom and the beginning of their incredible, life-long journey with Love.
Love never changes. He is constant and unrelenting. (h)
You were made for love. Love sets you free. And it is for freedom that you have been set free. (i)
God is Love. (j)
(a) 1 John 4:8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
(b) Psalm 30:5 For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.
(c) 1 Corinthians 13 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 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. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
(d) John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
(e) Exodus 14:14 The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.
(f) Genesis 1:27–2:1-3 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.
(g) John 19:30 – When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”
(h) Romans 12:2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.
(i) Deuteronomy 31:6 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them (your enemies, anything that steals your joy or hope. Anything that opresses you), for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
(j) Galatians 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
