Love is...

So today I want to write about something personal. Something that's personal to everyone.

It's a word that's thrown around all the time, and yet it is so much more than a word. It has thousands of different forms in hundreds of different languages, yet no one word can fully describe it. No-one can pin it down as being one thing. There's no definition for it. For anyone that experiences it, it simply 'is'.

You can't explain what or why it is. And this is why I have seen it misunderstood, so many times. I, myself, have not fully understood it.

After that slightly ambiguous introduction, I want to introduce love to you, as God intended us to know it...



From the very beginning, God gave us love. As soon as Eve was presented to Adam in the garden of Eden, there was love in the world. Love is so often confused with lust, greed, desire, hunger, selfishness and a means to self-satisfaction. But despite Adam and Eve's lack of clothing, the love they felt for one another was not a lustful desire. No, it was a pure and perfect love. It was a love from God.

In God's love, there was no selfishness. There was no longing to be heard. There was no suspicion. There was no embarrassment or shame. There was no struggle for the 'upper hand'. There was no need for any other satisfaction.

It was good and it was enough.

But sin broke in.

From then on, we see time and time again that love failed. It was not good and it was not enough. This meant that it was no longer God's perfect design for love.

It became a worldly idea of love. It became a lust for evil. It became a greed for more. It became a desire for the flesh. It became a hunger to fill the emptiness.It became a selfish struggle for significance. No longer did it satisfy.

Throughout the Old Testament we can see how, with the greatest of intentions, human love fails.

Human love hurts.

We are not big enough or strong enough to hold ourselves together, let alone hold together another, our lover, and that is what this human love required us to do.

However, the hero of this love story, is someone who was, and is, big enough and strong enough. He had designed the perfect love, and seeing this false intruder, He sent someone to destroy it. Seeing how much this false love was hurting you, He sent his beloved son to open Love's doors for you. He sent his one and only son, so that you would know love in all its fullness.

He wouldn't settle for you being 'Half' loved. 'Sort of' loved. 'Kind of' loved. Unloved.

He wants you to be perfectly loved.

God's love isn't a 'friends with benefits' kind of thing. It isn't an 'I can put up with X' kind of thing. It isn't a 'We'll pretend Y isn't happening' kind of thing. It isn't an 'I'm scared of who I am on my own' kind of thing.

It is whole and complete. It won't hurt you, and it won't leave you with regret. It will fill your emptiness. It will brighten your darkness.  It will satisfy every desire of your soul.

It is good and it is enough.

God's love is freely available for you because, He paid the price. The only word I can use in reference to this love, is... Gift.

Receive it.