I love you

When I say that what do I mean? “I hold you in deep regard”? Even that would be better than what is usually meant, “I feel emotions of affection for you.” But the question that every heart that has ever experienced human “love” is afraid to ask is, “What happens when those feelings are gone?” Many spend lifetimes trying to nurture those feelings believing that once the emotion is gone so is the love. It’s a cruel master human love.

Proverbs 20:6 asks the question every single person has asked at one time or another, I certainly have,  “Many a man proclaims his own loving-kindness and goodness, but a faithful man who can find?” (AMP) I read that and I wonder is there such a thing as love without faithfulness? Because generally speaking, we humans say, “I love you” and the “until” is silent but always implied. “I love you…until you stop making me feel special.” “I love you…. until my schedule is too busy”, “I love you… until the emotions are gone”, or my personal struggle, “I love you…. until you hurt my feelings”.  I have to face it, human love is cheap and fickle and always comes with a long list of conditions to satisfy it that are impossible for any human to consistently meet,  because “human love”, my "love" is not real love at all.

Everything I know about true love I learned from God. Every experience with it has come from Him. He taught me that real love is a commitment not a fancy. It is a commitment to do what is the best for the other person, to stick by them, to forgive them always, to give of yourself;  your time and your resources to them knowing that they will hurt and disappoint you, but making a commitment that even knowing that you are still going to be kind and choose to love them anyway. That is how God has always loved me.  And the one thing I came to realize is, when it comes to truly loving someone I can't. See, we don’t love “like God” loves; we love with God’s love.  But in order to do that we must first receive that love from Him.

When I receive it and allow it to fill me by dwelling in His presence and spending time on purpose thinking about His love,  then I reciprocate it back to Him, and then to others around me and I learn to love with His love. Once you experience it, really experience it, you understand the debt of love you have for others.  Every Christian is to be a carrier of His love.

I Corinthians 13 gives us many facets of love, and none of them has an “until” attached to it; in fact the first part of 13:8 reads. “Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end]”, there are no conditions on God’s love. He ALWAYS loves us. And when I love with His love, I love you because He loves you and I love Him, because He loves me. Always.

My challenge today is to love with God's love. My awesome privilege is to spend time basking in that love, focusing on it, living in conscience awareness of it, and in so doing let it fill me so that I may love others truly with God's love.  I pray that we may all accept the challenge and embrace the privilege. God fill us with Your love.


[That you may really come] to know [practically, through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and  become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]!
Ephesians 3:19 Amplified