This Is Love
By Paris Renae
Thursday, January 25, 2018
“This is real love – not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” 1 John 4:10 NLT
I don’t want to love people the same anymore. My way is selfish.
Don’t we all love best when there are no hurt feelings - no let downs? That’s our human version of love. Oh yes, even in the offenses, we still love our spouses, children, friends. But we withhold a little of the genuineness of our affection.
Everything I’ve read says Jesus doesn’t love like that. When our offenses are deepest, He loves best. When we blow it once again, His love covers over it and it is no more.
Can you and I love like that? Well, not all the time and not as perfectly. But can we love better?
Sometimes, I think it’s because we doubt God’s love for us that makes the love we have fragile. A young couple’s baby dies and we wonder: ‘God, do You really love?’ A young man goes off to serve his country and comes back badly broken, or doesn’t come back – again the questions.
We forget so easily that we see the messy knotted back of the tapestry. God is weaving all our tragedies and all our joys - and glory awaits.
That’s it, we must focus on the glory to come. The eternity that will have no more tears and no more sorrow. And then we need to remember that this world is full of hurting. It is not to us to add to it by not giving our best love.
The verse for today is followed by this one: “Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.” 1 John 4:11 NLT
Jesus walked this earth and felt our pains and lived our sorrows. Each sigh and lifting of His eyes to the Father was a remembrance: it’s not supposed to be this way. He reminded us in His word “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8 NIV
Let’s walk our time here with a more tender, more forgiving love – just like we want to receive.
Oh Father, countless songs and books are written on love. None are better than Your words. No love here is better than Yours, yet You want us to make sincere love a priority in our lives. Then others will know we belong to You. Quicken Your Spirit in us to help us love more sincerely and to not base it on our feelings but on the grace given us and the eternity we look forward to. In Jesus’ Name Amen
© 2018 by Paris Renae, All rights reserved.
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Originally published Thursday, 25 January 2018.
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