“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” – 1 John 4:10
Our culture has come to have a pathetically shallow, limited, inadequate, and degraded definition of love. We’ve let love be redefined by Hollywood movies, steamy novels, and sinful cultural norms. Love isn’t a rush of feeling, quickly ignited and ultimately disappearing like a mist over time. Love isn’t about raging hormones and the fulfillment of our lusts and desires. True love doesn’t start with us. It starts with God.
True love flows from God but it isn’t what we’ve come to think of as love. True love is far greater! God revealed what true love is when He responded to our hateful rebellion and scorn for Him by sending His precious Son, Jesus, into the world to pay the penalty for our sins. True love is rooted in God’s essential nature. It’s sacrificial. It’s gracious. It’s merciful. It seeks to elevate the recipient.
True love is more deeply and eternally satisfying than our culture’s parody of love but true love is costly. It sees the best in others even when they’re at their worst. It meets them where they are but doesn’t endorse or celebrate their situation or seek to leave them there. True love brings healing and transformation, not in order to receive it but because it has been received. True love isn’t about what’s in it for us. It requires us to be vulnerable in order to bless and heal the broken soul of the other person. That’s real love! #FollowJesus