I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine …
Song of Solomon 6:3 (KJV)
L.O.V.E … these four letters are so simple, yet so powerful. Love…we are all dreaming about it, seeking it, trying to understand it and if we are honest, we are trying to buy it from others.
Who can understand love? We have even dedicated a whole month to love, or rather to what we perceive love to be. We have equated it with a look, with a feeling, with a touch. We have tried to dissect it in hopes of finally understanding it. Because if we can understand it, then we can finally get it. We have gone through all these, while ignoring Love. What do I mean by this?
Love is not anything we have made it out to be. It is not the butterflies in our stomach or the happily ever after we are fed from a young age. Love, by nature is divine, and it cannot be understood outside of its divinity.
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:8 (NIV)
The Word tells us that God is Love. It is His DNA. And the reason we spend our whole lives searching for love, and at times giving up on it, is because love is also our DNA.
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them
Genesis 1:26-27 (KJV)
Do you see it? If God is Love and we were created in His image, then we too are love. Our spiritual DNA is love. It is who we are.
The issue therefore arises when we try to understand ourselves outside of ourselves. What do I mean by this? You cannot understand yourself outside of God. Why? Because it is from Him you were created. It is in His image you were created. Therefore, if you want to finally get a grip on love, you have to go to Love.
The whole Bible is a love story. It is a story of Love reaching through eternity to a people who have rejected Him. It is a story of unconditional love…the type of love that tortures and sacrifices itself just so that it can help a people cluelessly walking themselves to death and destruction. And this Love, even when rejected by its own, keeps on loving, without expecting love in return.
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
1 John 4:9 -10 (NIV)
Verse 10 in the above mirror really stands out to me: ‘ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us…’ When you are by nature love, you do not depend on another to be who you naturally are. You are naturally you, inspite of the circumstances you face or the response you receive from others. What am I saying? I am saying love is love is love. You cannot stop it from being love, you cannot change its composition, you cannot hide it, you cannot selectively distribute it. All you can do with love is to love.
And this is the assurance we get from Love:
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8: 38-39 (KJV)
Your Turn
You will only experience true love in Love. The thing about true love is that it is not forceful. Love will never force you to love it back. It will still love you. Love is not deterred by your imperfections or your weaknesses or your sins. Love never condemns, it corrects. Consider the below illustration of Love from Jesus:
but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them.The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
“No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
John 8 : 1-11(NIV)
Have you ever placed yourself in the position of this woman. Can you imagine the shame she must have gone through when what she did in private was exposed for all to see. She was literally caught in the act of adultery, not before or after the act, but in the act…exposed for all to see. Can you sense her fear, knowing that she was going to die soon, because according to the law she deserved to be stoned to death. Can you see the injustice she was experiencing as the man she was caught with was not present for this public shaming and execution. And with all these emotions and shame, with the stench of sin hovering over her…she is brought to the temple and is face to face with God, in the form of Jesus Christ. This sinful woman is presented to He who is Holy, He who is Creator. And what does He do?
He does not repeat her sin to her. He does not condemn her. He does not judge her. No, He does what the others should have done for her. Rather than continue to expose her, He covers her with love. He clothes her shame with love…and this love is so strong, that all her accusers one by one , walk away from her.
Imagine how that one act of love must have changed her life. Imagine the relief of a death sentence being lifted off. Imagine if that woman was you…or maybe she is you.
That is Love. He will always cover you, He will always protect you. Why? He can’t help it, that is His nature.
Know this, there is nothing you have done, nothing you have experienced, that disqualifies you from Love. Just accept His Love. That is the foundation from which you will know for yourself what love really is.
Today I ask you…have you been introduced to Love?