Loved

When someone tells you that they love you, how do you feel?

 

What do you think of?

 

What does it look like?

 

Have you ever been loved with the kind of "love" that has strings attached;

a love that is performance based?

 

Have you ever been loved with a perfect love?

 ___________________

 

I grew up confused about what love really is.

 

I knew the love passage in 1 Corinthians 13 by heart at a young age.

 

In my head I technically knew what love was. But did I really know it?

 

When someone said they loved me, were they really loving me? Or when I told someone I loved them, was I really loving them?

 

None of us are capable of loving with a perfect love independently of Christ; and on this side of eternity, not with perfect consistency.   

 

But there is definitely a difference between being loved and loving with a Christ-like unconditional love and a love that is self-serving.

 

In recent years my heart has learned how to tell the difference with an acuteness it didn't have before.

As a result, some  significant things have happened:

- I have become more open to receiving the perfect love of God from God.

- I have become better at identifying my own motives in relation to how I am loving others.

- I have become better at identifying the motives of others in relation to how they are loving me.

 
We all make mistakes. Most of us really do love someone, but may experience impatience with them or feel anger toward them at times. That goes back to our being born broken.

But the main point is, is the love we are giving or receiving coming from it's pure source -- God Himself? Or is it coming from a spring muddied with self-serving motives that cause confusion and pain?

I have learned that as we allow the perfect love of Christ to get ahold of and change our hearts, we learn about and know what real love is better, and it informs our praying, giving, and receiving in powerful, critically soul effecting ways.