John 13: 34-35 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
1 John 3:18–19. "Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth."
1 John 4:17–19 “In this is love perfected with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love.”
Love is something everyone wants to possess. Loving is something most want to be known as. You are hard pressed to find someone who says “I don’t want to be loved or loving.” Loving is something everyone thinks they are and does well. But truth is, LOVED is something few if any feel on a consistent basis. Not many of us are truly LOVE-able, which means not only do we understand and know ourselves well enough to give love, we know how to BE LOVED.
Most think of it as they do eating, drinking and sleeping. They assume they’re just programmed to love and how to do it well. While yes, we are programmed at birth with the ability to have feelings called love—God sends us here wired with His full capacity to love and we don’t get more love from Him He gives us His love full strength at creation. He IS LOVE and always gives us His best. It then becomes our task from first breath to last to develop, stimulate and learn how to ACT LOVEABLE. Being loveable means you not only know how to show love, you know how to RECEIVE IT. It doesn’t just happen and so few of us allow love in. We wall ourselves off from love most often not because of low self-esteem or feeling unworthy of love, we do it most often because we are un-willinging to be loveable in that moment when love presents itself to be received. We would rather perform then to be intimate and open and vulnerable. Most of us are numb to love. WE don’t even know ourselves well enough to know what we require, desire, want, need. That requires the pretense masks off, truth and reality and everything I really am, on. To really receive love you must not be protective, you must be transparent, honest, bare… the real you, not a representative. Anything you put in between you and love dilutes it and prevents it from reaching you full strength.
We were created for healthy relationships. God made us to need one another, we are reciprocal creatures , yet we live so one-sided, selfishly performing acts that appear like love but if we do them without love in our heart, it is simply an act .Too many of us have not taken the time to let God reduce us to love. When we fail in our relationships and fail to exercise biblical grace and love one to another AS WE HAVE BEEN LOVED, we become lonely and loneliness is a terrible condition, stimulating desperation and fear. Healthy balance is being neither needy nor cold. It can seem arrogant to a Christian to say, "I'm a lovable person. I'm worthwhile and deserve to have someone care deeply about me,” yet that is exactly what you have to say in order to be LOVE-able. Take some time today to check your love meter. Love is the greatest power on earth. People need to feel more love and they need to feel it from YOU. Will you become more love-able today?
Beloved, LOVE NEVER FAILS. I am praying with and for you.
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