Most Understanding Lord, everyone believes that love is important but thinks of it more as a feeling. Your Word tells me that You are the source of true love … a love that runs deep enough that You were willing to sacrifice Yourself to save me. You are my example of what it means to love. Through Your life and, even in death, You were always extremely loving. It is the Holy Spirit that infuses me with the ability to love as He guides me into becoming more like You. Your love always involved choices and actions and mine should be the same. The scriptures declare that You are love. In the world with its shallow and selfish view of love, our understanding of love has been contaminated. The world tells me that love is something that makes me feel good and it’s okay to sacrifice my morals and principles in order to attain it. But that is not real love … it’s the opposite … because its focus is self-fulfillment.
Real love is like You … holy, just and perfect. As I get to know You better, I am convinced I will learn to love in the same way that You do. Love explains: Why You created me … because You wanted someone to share Your love with; why You care … because You had sympathy for my fallen condition; why You gave me freedom … because Your wanted me to choose to love You; why You died for my sake … because You wanted to take away what separated me from Yourself; why You wanted me to have eternal life … because of Your desire to share with me. Nothing sinful or evil can exist in Your presence. You are absolutely good and absolutely pure. Because of that fact, You cannot overlook, condone or excuse my sins as though they never happened. You love me, but Your love does not make You look past my moral lapses. Your love provides a way of forgiveness and opportunities to start over again.
When I love another person, I am allowing You to reveal Yourself to that person. Because You love me, I should be willing to reach out and love someone for You. Even though I’ve never seen You personally, if I love another person, I know You live in me and Your love flows out to that person. As I grow closer to You, I am confident that I can count on Your love to care for me. Because I feel safe and secure in Your love, there is no place for fear and worry in my life. Your love drives fear from my life so that I can walk with boldness among the evil that fills the earth. I am able to love today because it was You who first loved me and gave me an example of how to live unselfishly. I have no excuse for withholding my love and not sharing it with others … so I’m making a decision today to love as You do. And it’s in Jesus’ name I pray. AMEN!!
I John 4:11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.