We’re going to start this week off talking about love. Yes I mean the love of God but also, I’m talking about romance. I mean we can’t truly love someone without first knowing the love of God and falling in love with Him.
Jeremiah 31:3
"I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With that unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.
God’s love is everlasting, it stands the test of time, it stands through everything. There was never a time where God did not love us. His love is unconditional. He loves us throughout all of our ups and downs, everything. God’s love for us is so great that nothing we do can make Him love us less. This is the type of love that we should seek in every area of our life. No one will be able to love us in the exact way that God loves us, but the type of love He shows to us is how we should strive to love others and be loved by others.
We’ve talked about loving our neighbor and we’ve talked about loving our friends, we’ve even hinted on relationships. However we’ve never dived into the idea of falling in love and how God’s love for us influences the way we love, in a romantic way. Sounds crazy right, but God teaches us how to love in every area of our lives.
Genesis 29:20
So Jacob worked seven years to pay for Rachel. But his love for her was so strong that it seemed to him but a few days.
One of the earliest instances of true love I can remember in the bible is when Jacob worked seven years in order to marry Rachel. Now for those of you who know the story you know Jacob, the trickster was tricked by his uncle Laban into marrying Leah. Leah was Rachel’s older sister. So he worked seven more years to get the woman of His dreams. Yeah I know, it sounds crazy, but that’s how it happened. A lot went down in the old testament, if you think reality tv is something read the old testament of the bible. That’s something! However back to what we were talking about. Jacob worked fourteen years in order to marry the woman of his dreams. When he saw her, he was like ‘I like that girl and I’m going to marry her.’ I’m sure he didn’t think that He would have to work fourteen years to marry her, but he loved her so much the time flew by. He was so in love that the time he has to work to get her was nothing to Him. I mean what was seven or fourteen years compared to a lifetime? Many of us can’t imagine waiting that long to marry someone. We can’t imagine waiting that long for anything, but when love is involved it changes everything. Love can change things, and if it’s the right type of love, it will always change for the better. I know some of us are like, ‘love won’t change me’ and saying how you’ll never do things for love. Yeah okay, fall in love and see how that changes. I’m pretty sure Jacob thought he wouldn’t have to work fourteen years for love, but it had him in those fields everyday and the time felt like the speed of light.
Now I’m not sure how many of you have been in love. I’m assuming quite a few of you have been in love this is the age where many of us are either falling in love, have been in love, or are currently in love. I’ve been in love before and first let me start by saying that I hope your first love ended much better than mine. However when you’re really in love with someone, time flies by. It’s timeless, you believe at least for the time being that you will love this person forever. It’s like Jacob, his love for Rachel was so strong that seven years felt like a few days.
When it comes to love I believe that there is both a healthy way to love and an unhealthy way to love. I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard the term blinded by love, but it’s not really a good thing. This is the type of love that is run by infatuation. The times when we are so into a person that we are blinded by all the red flags that God is flashing in our face. This is the type of love that leads to heartbreak. There’s a few things that we must learn about love as we grow.
We learn how to love from the love we have been given. For those of us who are Christian we have come to the knowledge that God’s love is unconditional and full of grace. We learn how to love properly because we serve a living God and He is love. His very essence is love. Everything about Him screams love. His love is unconditional. He sees our sin and sees our mistakes, yet He still chooses to love us. Seeing that this is the way God loves us, this is how we must love our others. Which leads me to my next point.
We must love ourselves before we can love anyone else. My mom always told us growing, “No one will respect you, if you don’t respect yourself.” I say that to say, sometimes we go looking for love and validation is someone and we end up ruining a great thing because we don’t love ourselves, and therefore we cannot grasp the idea of someone else loving us. Meaning we can sometimes stand in the way of being loved. The bible tells us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves but if we do not love ourselves how are we going to love someone else. Especially in a relationship.
Last but most definitely not least, love is work. If we want it to work we have to work for it. Jacob worked seven years for the love of His life, and it flew by. We have to be willing to work for love. It won’t always be peaches and romance, sometimes it will be hard. It’s those moments we have to work through. Now some relationships are only meant for a season, but when God sends the one trust me you will know it. When God sends the person you are meant to spend the rest of your life with, even then, especially then, we have to work for it. We choose to love that person every day. We continue to fall in love.
However, just because we’re falling in love with someone doesn’t mean we stop falling in love with God. God must always come first, always. Nothing and no one should ever come before Him. We must fall in love with Him more and more everyday. It is the only way we will be able to survive and live.
Reflection
- Are you in love?
- Are you in love with God?
- Do you love yourself?
Prayer Time
Allow your overall response to today's discussion and the above questions guide your prayer. Talk to God about love, being loved, and falling in love.
I know you’ve read this word a million times, but I love and I hope you have an amazing day or evening. Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 214!
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