Such overwhelming emotions today as I sat before Him. The tangible presence of God – stripping me of all my barriers, revealing the frailty of my heart. And there was nothing I could do about it – I was exposed. All my weaknesses, all my uncertainties, all my fears, all my flaws, my feelings, my inability to love well – they were all exposed. And the silent tears come. Tears and emotions that I didn’t even know I was holding back.
“Perfect love cast out fear, My child”
All my fears – fears of not being good enough, fears of being unfaithful, fears of being replaced and forgotten – He knew them all and I heard Him say again:
“Perfect Love cast out fear. Abide in My love.”
And I felt the burdens that I didn’t even know I was carrying lifted off my shoulders; and I sat there, awestruck, once again, with the reality of His gentleness, His loving kindness, His delight, and His love towards weak, little me. I’m far from perfect, made many bad decisions, and made my fair share of mistakes – but He reminded me today the foundational premises in Scripture – that God loves us with SAME INTENSITY that God loves God (John 15:9).
God is love – wholehearted love (1 John 4:16). The very being of God is wholehearted love, and it is the first in God’s personality and in the relationships of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. From eternity past, God has loved God with all His heart; fully satisfied in the fellowship within the Godhead. The very essence of how God feels and thinks is this wholehearted love. He has great power and wisdom but only uses them to express His love…
And He loves us – with the very same intensity that He loves God. But He reminded me today that it doesn’t just end there: we were called to ABIDE in that reality (John 15:9). It wasn’t an option – it was a command, an imperative statement.
My vulnerable heart – it can rest in that. It can rest in the reality that He enjoys me. Regardless of what I’ve failed at, regardless of what I feel in how I can’t measure up to certain expectations, regardless of how much I try to love well but can’t, His love is never changing. It’s unstoppable, unrelenting. And He enjoys me – weak, dorky, impatient, plain, little old me.
We will not love God more by trying harder to love (trust me, I’ve tried and failed miserably). But we will love more by seeing more of His love (we love because He first loved us).
Abide in His love. Dwell in it. Jesus – fully God, the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, rich and lofty, and highly exalted – chose to put on the garment of humanity for a fallen human race. He didn’t choose to do that when an angel fell from Heaven, but He chose to do that for the sake of love FOR US. For the rest of eternity He is human forever and will wear the garment of humanity till the very end of time. He didn’t come to just walk the earth for 33 years, die, rise again from the grave, ascend to the Heavens and take off the garment of humanity thankful that He could finally be rid of it. No, He is human, and fully God, FOREVER. When that day comes, and we stand before Him, we will see Him, in human form, bearing the symbols of love on His hands and body for all of eternity. We were worth it.
When we focus on the way God loves God, and the way God loves His people, our natural response is love. Our natural response would be obedience to the first commandment. The more you dwell on His love – the more you seek to gain insight on it– the more you realize your worthiness and your identity in Christ. The beauty of that?– you will naturally learn to love yourself the way God does. We begin to love ourselves through the lens of the revelation of Jesus, His cross, and our great worth to Him. And we have indescribable worth. Seeing ourselves and our new identity, destiny, and worth in God’s love empowers us to love ourselves in Him. And from that place, we have the grace to love others well – the second commandment.
We will never fully graduate from the gospel – there are many deep aspects that we will never fully understand. We will never finish this journey, this pursuit, of Love. There is always more to learn and it’s an ongoing discovery process. Abide in His love – it’s a call to continually live in it and stay focused on gaining insight about it while we’re in it.
Some days, we’ll do better than others. But thankfully, there is grace. He loves us too much to let us stay stagnant for too long :] When we choose to abide, the world will see God and they will see His love manifested.
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