Sometimes, the greatest lessons about God’s love comes from the people we love the most. They have the power to hurt us the most. But, while…
God’s love may make us vulnerable, it never makes us weak.
God’s love is tough! It doesn’t just tear and break because we’re disrespectful or take it for granted! The experience of His love for us teaches us just how resilient our love should be for others. But we must remember that the only way we can love like God does is in the power and presence of God Himself.
Apart from God’s presence, our love is shallow and fragile.
But after we are born again, we have the opportunity to live in God’s presence and love like He does. In fact, Jesus commanded us to do this!
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” John 13:34
If Jesus commanded us to love this way, then He will give us the strength to do it. But, my friend, without God’s presence, our break-away point is pretty quick for someone who continually offends us. In fact, we often want to go further than breaking away—we want to wage full scale retaliation to make them feel the same pain they’ve inflicted on us. But where does that get us? We are not any closer to enjoying our life, are we? No. In fact, we’re further from experiencing the deepest satisfaction in life because—we are further from God. When I’m tempted to retaliate or fail to have an attitude of mercy, I’m reminded:
No one loves me more than God; I have abused His love more than anyone has ever abused mine!
This is not false humility; rather, this is an acknowledgment of a simple truth. My sin cost Jesus everything. He didn’t give His life and rescue me from the prison of sin just so I could go back to living in enslavement! Ah, my friend, WE are the ones who are hardest on GOD’s love.
God’s love for us far exceeds the love of anyone we have loved!
When God’s children sin against His love, He doesn’t retaliate. If He did, we’d ALL be dead. Rather, we lose our strong sense of His presence. Believe me, when you’ve grown used to the soul-saturating sense of His presence—to lose it—is the greatest horror! My relationship with God is my most meaningful friendship. Losing His close companionship would be the worst hell on earth imaginable. God’s nature is righteous, and when we choose sin over Him, we’re imposing a self-inflicted punishment upon ourselves. When I think about how He has loved me over and over again—it always brings me to my knees. I pray it always does!
It is God’s resilient love that keeps me close to Him and teaches me how to really love others.
Our love for others can be as resilient as God’s love for us. In His presence we can love others with the same attitude of forgiveness and mercy God gives us. When we turn our offender over to God, He invariably directs us to do two things: First, forgive; and second, pray for them. From there, He shows us what else, if anything, we should do. Many times—especially with family and those we’re in constant contact with—He helps us even forget the offense so we can love them without the burden of the offense. Even if He has us withdraw our close association with them, that doesn’t mean we don’t continue to pray for them. God’s resilient love for us gives us the freedom to love others beyond our own capacity.
My friend, when God’s presence gives us all the love we need, we aren’t worried about getting it from others.
And—we don’t give up on each other so easily. The Bible says:
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love, does not know God, because God is love.” 1 John 4:7-8
God’s great love for us is our example. It should radically change the way we love each other. The pain of having our love rejected or being deeply hurt by someone who is supposed to love us should drive us deeper into the experience of God’s love because we know HIS love—NEVER fails.
God’s presence allows us to experience the gift of resilient love and frees us to love others as we are loved.
