05/11/2023
Do we know what love is, and do we understand the depth to which it should be applied to those around us? This is my contemplation this morning, and that I truly show the love of Jesus Christ. Our ability to love is a gift to us, but it is one that we must work at perfecting. The basic attributes of love are felt the minute it erupts within us, but then comes the process of adding depth to it.
“And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”
Philippians 1:9-11 ESV
When I first met my wife I felt an infatuation that was quickly followed by an intense emotional love. I was nearly overcome by the power of it, but I also had seen the product of years of love, older men and women in love, and knew that this love would somehow transform itself over time. What I didn't understand was that this transformation didn't come by the passage of time alone… it sometimes involved suffering.
““For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Love is a great joy, but it is also the source of our greatest pain and suffering. Love begins with a heavy dose of emotion, but over time refines itself until what is left in the cask is a wine of remarkable and subtle taste, color, and smell. It is like a fine wine that is hard to describe, but once tasted, never leaves your palate, and whose experience causes you to pause and close your eyes to all else. Love is the very essence of our lives, and our faith.
To perfect love... whether it be the love for our God, our spouse, our children, our families, or others around us, requires work and patience in its making. It doesn't begin complete, and requires all we are in life to complete it. When we decide to love, all the experiences in life will become a part of it. We will find great joy that comes from finding and sharing it. We will experience suffering like we never knew possible. We will experience heartbreaks that shake us to the core. We will feel tenderness that exceeds all bounds, and we will make sacrifices that are beyond all logic and reason. Love encompasses everything we are, and all there is in life. This is why it is so central to the Bible, and why it is the core of the two greatest commandments...
“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."”
Mark 12:30-31 ESV
Yet, just as God's love grows in us, it can also ebb. But even as it goes out like a tide, it never truly leaves. Love untended, unmanaged, and unrequited, simply changes into something ugly and vile, it can become the foundation for evil and immense hatred. This ravished form of a twisted and untrue love is of the dark one, and it seeks to destroy us, and our faith... it is dark and satanic in its evil nature... It is the founding of the antichrist, and the antithesis of the true love of God. However, in Jesus we remain firmly fixed in the Love of God.
“For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
2 Peter 1:8 ESV
Jesus speaks to us of adding certain things to our love. He does this so that our loves can grow into a fullness of beauty, and not become twisted by the dark one into the great hatred and evil of which we just spoke. How are we loving today, and is the love of God the transformative power, and the focus of our lives?
“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.”
2 Peter 1:5-7 ESV
So Jesus tells us of love, and He also commands us to embrace it. It becomes one of His commandments to us, and not just the frail love we experience in its infancy, but the fullness of Love realized in its maturity... the beautiful love of God for us... the love of Christ that is willing to suffer as it grows, and exists without diminishing.
“"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
John 15:12 ESV
Love is who we are, and we are nothing without it. We can understand who God is, but have no relationship with Him without love. We can be attracted to our spouse, but there is only lust without love. We can have sex and procreate, but no family can be formed without it. Love is the core of all our joy, sorrow, satisfaction, and regret. Love is who we are and all we will become. It is the greatest gift that God has given us, and the essence that was contained in His breath at creation. Love is living, and living the breath of life.
“then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”
Genesis 2:7 ESV
Some say that our greatest gift in life is self-awareness, and our soul... but I offer that none of these other things matter without love.
Prayer:
Father, thank you for your gift of love. Thank you for loving us and for allowing us to love you back. We would never have known you without this gift, and never understood your desire in our creation. Love is a piece of you that links us together as one, and is the ingredient in salvation that is indispensable... thank you Father for this... the DNA of divinity. Jesus, we thank you for exhibiting the greatest love of all by suffering for us, and offering your life on the cross to save us. Help us to love as you loved us, and to follow your commandments in love. Let your words always be in our ears, and our love never retreat like an outgoing tide...
“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.”
John 15:13-14 ESV
For Lord you lead us in love, because of love, and for love. This is our essence, and the true aroma of faith, and heaven. Praised be the name of the Lord, for He is greatly to be praised... His love endures forever.
Rich Forbes