Weekend Preview: Who is Love?
Make no mistake, we are all searching for a LOVE that will satisfy the longing of our souls.
Although this desire is placed in us by God, it is also the drive that prevents us from experiencing true love and settling for the cheap imitation of love that satisfies for a moment. Our strong desire for love often causes us to be selfish in our love.
Our strong desire for love causes us to be selfish in our love.Click To Tweet
We long to feel needed, wanted, desired. This is natural within every person and was there in our hearts by God. However, we often try to fill that void with a love that simply cannot fully satisfy our souls, because we settle for how love functions in our current society.
Example: If you’re emotionally needy, you’ll ultimately connect with a controlling person who shows interest in you because they need to control things and you long for someone who will be highly invested in you. This will start out in the form of “love” but later on with show its true colors that both of you entered into a relationship with selfish agendas. When one starts to buck that control and the other starts resenting how needy their partner is, love fades and resentment takes its place.
Our approach to love is naturally selfish. We have needs, desires, longings in our soul and we seek to get them filled. Similar to the “jackets” I put on last week, we view love from a “what fits me / what do I need / what do I want” approach.
What we really are looking for is a SELFLESS Love. Someone who will love us sacrificially and who always wants the best for us.
Here’s the GREATEST NEWS YOU WILL EVER HEAR… We already have that love.
God’s Love is Selfless!
God’s Love is Selfless!Click To Tweet
The love that our souls long for comes from Him. The fulfillment we crave comes from His love expressed through Jesus Christ and indwells us through the Holy Spirit. We have the most incredible Lover of our souls who is selfless.
This is the kind of love we are able to OFFER someone else when we experience the LOVE of Jesus in our own hearts.
Ephesians 3:18 “…may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”
When you and I are living in the fullness of God’s LOVE for us (the width, length, height, and depth), we are able to GIVE THAT SAME LOVE TO SOMEONE ELSE.
Think about it… God gave us the greatest gift we could imagine by giving us the ability to LOVE someone else the way that He loves them in this time and space on earth. The opportunity I have to LOVE my wife and show her how much God loves her through my Love is available 24/7.
I just have to be experiencing it for myself first. I have to be so fulfilled by God’s love that my selfish needs, desires, and wants are overcome by the fullness of His Love for me.
When I can experience that kind of LOVE, then I’m able to choose to love others with a SELFLESS LOVE!
Join us this Sunday (VALENTINES DAY!) as we continue with the question “Who is Love?” in our message series.