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God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him (1 John 4:16, NASB1995).
Love is mostly lost in our culture because we have lost God.
Love hasn’t been lost because our true love has betrayed us or because our friends don’t like us anymore. Love hasn’t been lost because we are searching in all the wrong places – though most do today.
God is love; when we lose God, we lose love.
All of us have been created in the image of God and therefore made for love. The love that satisfies deeply and can never be lost comes from God. Since God is love, if we don’t lose God, we can’t lose love.
No one can take God away from us, but we can lose God and thus lose love.
Love can’t be found by finding the perfect person (unless it’s Jesus!). Love can’t be found by doing whatever we want. Love can’t be found by listening to a Miley Cyrus love song over and over again.
Let’s take an aside. Spotify lists the Miley Cyrus song, Flowers, as the most popular love song right now. The chorus is . . .
I can buy myself flowers, write my name in the sand.
Talk to myself for hours, say things you don’t understand.
I can take myself dancing, and I can hold my own hand.
Yeah, I can love me better than . . .
Yeah, I can love me better than you can!
With the idea in this age that “I am love” instead of “God is love,” no wonder many have lost or can’t find love. We hurt, we turn inward, but do we find love there?
Admittedly, love has a terrible price. We love ourselves rather than others because it seems easier.
Jesus died on the cross. All of us who follow God will sooner or later have to embrace the loss of everything about our flesh – things and people that we hold too dearly.
Costly indeed. But worth it because the things that we substitute for love, when they are begrudgingly disposed of, allow us to find love. This love has endurance. The Apostle Paul prays for us in Ephesians 3:17-19, that we . . .
. . . may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.
How do we find this love?
We start by declaring Jesus as our Lord, then listening to His voice. Love begins with obedience and develops through serving others. When we learn this secret, love can’t be lost because we can always obey and serve.
Don’t believe, “I can always love me better.” Do we really want to live our lives with our miserable, selfish, discouraged, and bitter selves as the epitome of love?
I don’t. Not when we can know a God who loves so much that He freely gives us all things.
How do we love this week?
I’m going to ask you to perform an act of charity. I’m not going to ask you to confess your sins to those that you have offended. The best teacher is God is Love!
This week pray daily, “God, show me what I need to do to grow love.”