So what do you think about when I say "love"? Is it the ooey gooey fake love movies and tvs tell us about? How about the love songs? Is that real love? Real love, you say??? What is that?!? Trust me when I say that most of the love we see in movies and tv shows as well as in songs is not real.... Real love is the most beautiful thing in this sick, sad world. Love has become so distorted and undermined. Well played, satan. Turn the beautiful gift that God gave us into a meaningless thing that few people understand anymore. Downplay the reality of what Jesus went through because He loves us. What a horrible thought, but think about it. It's exactly what he does with everything God gave us. He turns beautiful things into things of ugly, distorted, meaningless drivel. The worst thing? We submit to it. We allow him to turn the beauty around us into drivel. We allow him to distort the Truth about Love.
No, God doesn't need us to fight His battles. He can do it all on his own. The thing is, He wants us to want to fight battles with Him, because He loves us. He created all of us to be warriors, lovers, every beautiful thing you can think of... He created us for beauty and Love. Real Love. The kind of love you get from having a relationship with our Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. You can't appreciate Love of that magnitude unless you have a relationship with all Three as One.
Read these scriptures:
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Romans 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 8:37-39 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Love isn't some minor, meaningless drivel. Love is beautiful. Love is open, honest, trusting. Love is so much bigger than any word can describe. Love is a Father, sending His Son to die for OUR sins. Love is doing that while we are STILL sinners. Love cannot be overcome.
Love is forgiveness. Has someone hurt you? Respond in Love. Has someone harmed you? Respond in Love. Has someone shaken the ground you stand on? Respond in Love.
I have been in love for nine years. I loved my husband before Christ, but I didn't really Love him. I had no concept of what Love could be until Jesus showed me the difference. Physical and emotional love are an important part of marriage, but nothing... NOTHING.... NOTHING compares to the spiritual love that comes from knowing God. There are no words to describe how amazing it is. My relationship with Jesus changed me. Ben's relationship with Jesus changed him. Our relationship with each other AND Jesus completely rewrote our love story. Do we hurt each other? Sometimes, because we are, after all, human. However, forgiveness is a beautiful thing. Knowing our Love is so much more than this world's version of love, that it's ETERNAL.....
Think about that for a minute... Love for eternity.....
This is what Love looks like:
John 15:9-17 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
What a fantabulously exciting idea. For the Love our Father has for us is even greater than what we could EVER imagine... It's so much more than the love of a husband and wife, mother or father and child, brother and sister, best friends..... It's everything you feel from each of these relationships, to the bazillion quadrillionth power, and that isn't even all of it! There is no measure for how full of Love you become when you have the Love of the Father pouring into and out of you.
So look inside yourself.... Do you experience that Love? Do you abide in His Love? If not, don't you want to?? Look around..Do you exhibit that Love? Look around again.. who exhibits that Love? Talk to them, pray with them. Seek Him. Ask Him to show you what Love looks like. Talk to Him, have a relationship... There is no greater joy than what is found when you have that relationship with the One who created you for Love.