All About Love

 

 

Valentine’s Day is coming!  My husband has had to step up his Valentine’s Day learning curve over the last 45 years! At first I received self-help books about how to have a happy husband; then the next few years I received appliances; and then came plants and maybe flowers.  Finally, my sweet Ralph decided to ask me what I wanted so I wrote up a wish list…and this is what we have done for the last 25 years …that way I receive something I want and yet I am surprised!! 

My question for all of us today is—how do we develop and nurture a love worth giving on Valentine’s Day and every day? The answer, I believe, is found in God’s Word. Let’s read what Jesus has to say in the following passage…

John 15: 9-17 (NLT)

I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command… This is my command: Love each other.

There are some steps we must take in order to have a love worth giving:

First Step: RECEIVE HIS LOVE

The three most significant words in each person’s life are: JESUS LOVES ME! Accepting the love of Jesus and living in his love everyday, is the first and most essential step in having a love worth giving.

Jesus explains it this way: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5 NLT). In other words, as we draw closer to Christ and stay connected to him, he funnels his love into our hearts; only then will we have a love worth giving, because his love is the only perfect, pure love.

Second Step: RETURN HIS LOVE
In Jesus’ day, a rabbi’s disciples were generally known as his servants. But Jesus changes that. He says: “You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I heard from my Father” (vs. 14-15 NCV). In your relationship with God, Jesus promotes you from servant to friend—which sort of begs the question: what kind of friend are you?
It’s one thing to say, “Jesus loves me.” It’s whole other thing to say, “I love Jesus.” Each of us must ask ourselves … Do I love Jesus? Do I love God?

Is my love for Jesus reflected in how I live my life? We will never be able to love the people God has put in our lives if we don’t start by loving God himself.

Jesus said that the first and greatest command is this: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength” (Mark 12:30 NCV). Our love for God—for Our Heavenly Father, for Jesus, for the Holy Spirit—must be the driving force of our lives. If everything we do isn’t driven by our deep love for God, then nothing we do really matters. 

So how do we respond to God’s love in practical ways? Well, I would say it’s not too different from any other love-relationship.  It is a relationship built on trust, communication, and adoration.  In other words: faith, prayer, and worship. The thing about loving Jesus is that our love for him needs to be all-consuming. That is what it means to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and abide in his love for you—our love for God must touch every aspect of our lives.

I think Paul explains this total surrender really well… Romans 12:1-2 (MSG)
¹ So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.
² Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Step Three: RECYCLE HIS LOVE
Jesus says, Romans 12:10 (ESV) Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

Once we receive the love of Jesus into our lives and return his love, then we’re ready to recycle that love—to share that love with the rest of the world.  Jesus gives us precise directions about how we should love people. He says, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you” (John 15:12 NIV). This commandment knocks the walls out of any definition that would limit the scope and intensity of love. We are to love as he loved.

We must never lose sight of whose love we are following…Jesus Christ—the son of the living God, the Alpha and Omega.  How did He love? He got on his knees and washed the filthy feet of his disciples. He went through the agony of crucifixion.

As we seek to grow in our capacity to love—to have a love truly worth giving—let’s continue to look to the heart of Jesus and learn to love as He loves. 

Joyfully,

Yvonne