1 John 3:16-18

Your greatest experience of love will be the love that you share. This is why so many people love in such a shallow and situational way, because this is the only way that they have experienced love. They have experienced if and when love. I will love you…

… if you are beautiful.
… if you perform well at work.
… if you do what I want.
… when you make me happy
… when you are at your best.
… when it is easy.

Then you have a bad day or you show too many of your flaws and you discover that love is conditional. It is incredibly painful to experience the temporality of someone’s love for you. So, you try to perform and you hide as many of your flaws as you can. You look for the people and places where the conditions are all right and when the ifs and whens stop (and they will) you move on and look for love elsewhere. Because if that is how you have always experienced love, it is all you know.

This is why we get such an incredible confidence from a God who doesn’t just say that he loves us but shows us in the way that he lived. He laid down his life for you and me. This sentence doesn’t only describe his death, as meaningful as that was. It describes how he lived every day, serving others, providing for people, sharing wisdom, laughing and playing. It describes how he loves us still. For Jesus being human was to love.

The love that God has for us is not if and when but flows from who he is. It is in his very nature to love like this… he is a loving God and so he loves. Always. He wants to provide for you because he loves you. The Maverick City song, Jirah, starts with these words, I’ve never been more loved than I am right now. The depth of love that God has for you is staggering.

Your greatest experience of love will be the love that you share.

Reflect + Respond

Take some time to pause and reflect on the love of God for you. If you have needs, then bring them to God. There is nothing that is too big for him or too small that he won’t care. He wants to provide for you.