Affection: Expressing care and closeness through physical touch and through words such as “I love you” or “I Care about you.”
(Romans 16:16. Mark 10:16)
I have made the statement often in the last few years, that God wants us to love each other “better” and not pay quite so much attention to loving others “more”. When it comes to loving others and even loving God, I think I was incomplete in my encouragement to love “better”. The verses I read this week let me know that this is not an either / or but a both / and. Philippians 1:9-11
Jesus – The Light of the World
Jesus loved perfectly. He loved most and best. His heart was full of compassion for those He served and knew. I believe He loved them (and us) so much that no one could love more than He. Jesus also loved best. His love was never too little or too much. He never compromised love by not telling the truth. He never compromised the truth by not loving. Many were amazed by Jesus’ teaching as we read in Matthew 7 at the end of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6, 7); but even more than that they must have been amazed at how much He loved and how well He loved.
Do you know this love from Jesus? Do you know He loves you best and most? Do you know Jesus came, lived, died, and rose from the grave to bring God’s love to us…to you?
His Word – A lamp and a Light
Today’s 52 Week Plan is primarily written to couples, but this could apply just as easily to a couple of friends, a couple of family members, a couple of work associates. Seriously, our culture has so confused love with permissiveness, with lack of boundaries, with words, with having sex, with having a temporary feeling we hope would last. I see this everywhere. Check out the themes of movies, songs, books, tv programs, and casual conversations and see if you can detect whether the people involved even know what God’s love is, what true love looks like, how it really feels to be genuinely loved. So many aspire to it, but too many fail to get it, keep it, or consistently give it away. Yet, Jesus made it clear that we are to love as He loves and show the world we are His disciples.
You And I Are “The Light of the World” – Jesus Said So.
I want you to pray something with your spouse or for your spouse or both. Look up I John 5:14-15 and read it a few times. Notice, John the Apostle said under inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit that “if we ask anything according to God’s will”, then “He hears us”. John goes on to give a promise, that if “God hears us” then we will have what we ask. Wait a minute! Before you start thinking this means that if you ask for a big fancy car, or perfect health, or completely smooth sailing in life that God is somehow obligated to grant it, you might need to think again. I think we sometimes confuse God and Santa Claus. Friend, God loves us too much to grant us all our wishes.
He did say in this 1 John 5:14-15 passage that if we ask anything according to His will, we’d get it. So what could be more the will of God than you and your spouse growing to love each other as Jesus loves you, each of you? John 13: 34-35 makes it clear that we are commanded and enabled to love as Jesus loves. We don’t have time here to go into all the ways Jesus loved and loves, but you might want to make sure you at least look into it. After all, love (God’s love) is the greatest thing in the world! I Corinthians 13:13 makes that abundantly clear.
Truth is. We all know that already. We’ve been looking for it all our lives, and when we think we have found someone who truly loves us and wants the best for us, we are the happiest we can be. No one can love us perfectly or constantly with the same intensity every moment, but we can grow to love the “Lord our God with all our heart” and to love “our neighbor as ourselves”. That neighbor, friend, is your “near one”; and who is your nearest “near one” but your spouse. By the way, it is also very important that you love yourself Matthew 22:37-39 makes the connections for us. You love yourself and appreciate, respect, accept, and celebrate the person God made you and the life He has privileged you to live, and you’ll be a person who can love others too.
Pray together with her/him; with your friends; with your parents or siblings or grandparents that your relationships will grow to reflect the best love, the most love…the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ. He loves us and wants the best for us. His love to us, in us, and through us is the best thing we could ever have and share.