My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.
I John 4:8-10
Everyone on the planet–past, present and future–desires to be noticed, validated, affirmed, encouraged, accepted and significant. Look around and you will see that most, if not all, of our behavior stems from the hope that we will find these things. What is the greatest expression of these things (validation, acceptance, and significance)? The answer is Love.
When, with a good heart and good motives, I tell my wife “I love you,” I am saying: I see you and want to be with you. I accept you, and you are significant to me. Wedding vows are a declaration of love and a promise to love. When my wife or kids tell me they love me, when I sense in my heart that I am valued, seen, wanted and enjoyed—that I belong - it makes me feel alive. I feel and experience Life in those moments.
First John tells us God is Love, so where is this Love found and how can it bring us Life? We find Life when we find it in the Love of God. That is why we were created. God is speaking with all of His being (since He is Love), over and over again, the words we all long to hear—I love you! You are my beloved! Upon hearing this we feel and experience that for which we were made—relationship. And I can be alive in that moment forever because of the wonderful and glorious impact of His supernatural Love.
Is this true about you? How does your heart respond upon hearing this? Jesus, will you show and reveal to us this kind of supernatural unconditional love?
An excerpt from Search and Rescue.
