How many times have you heard phrases like “I love you because you take care of me”, or “I love you because you’re funny;” or “I love you because of the way you make me feel”?
This season of Christmas has triggered a few thoughts in my mind and the cardinal point of these thoughts could be traced to an uncommon kind of love which the Father has lavished on us as His children. I will be looking first at our own human definition of love and then how God’s love is so much more than our own understanding of what love is.
How do we define love?
The Bible says in 1 John 4:8, “Anyone who does not love, does not know God, because God is love”. But what does this love look like? How do we define it?
Well, the American Heritage Dictionary defines love as “An intense affection for another person based on familial or personal ties.” Now I’m sure we can all say honestly that we have experienced loving someone or that we have been on the receiving end and have experienced being loved by another person. However, this is often because of how that person makes us feel, notice the key word in the definition “based on”. This word is conditional and implies that we love conditionally; simply put, we love someone if they fulfil a condition that we require before we can love them. How many times have you heard phrases like “I love you because you take care of me”, or “I love you because you’re funny;” or “I love you because of the way you make me feel”?
Also, our love is based upon the way we feel and the emotions we have towards someone and that can change from one moment to the next. We lose our love for one another if we lose interest, or if someone wrongs us and we are unable to forgive them.
Is there any way we can actually comprehend “unconditional” love? I would argue that the closest thing we have to unconditional love is the love a parent has for their children, to love them even when they are unlovable. A good parent will love their child even if they don’t “feel’ love for them. This is similar to God’s love for us, but God’s love for us transcends our own human definition of love.
Do you feel no one can ever love you again because of your past? Jesus Christ died and rose on the third day in order to secure eternal life for you. Rise up today and open the door of your heart to Him and you will begin to experience the amazing unconditional love of the Father. According to Revelations 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me”.
