Aren’t you thankful dear sister that God’s love never grows tired of you?
I was thinking this morning how conditional our love often is. How subtle and easy it is to extend love, based on our own feelings in that moment, influenced by our personal wants and desires. How quickly our extension of love is measured by what we will benefit from it, what personal gain it may bring. How quickly we want to stop loving because it feels inconvenient or difficult. Yet, the love we receive often feels largely conditional as well, doesn’t it? It often feels dependent on our actions, our abilities, how well we performed, our “track record,” perhaps our intellect, our looks, how put together we seem. Any wrong move or mess up, perhaps one to many times, may cost us from receiving love. It may cause the love to run out, run dry, cease. Love can become exhausting, intimidating, disappointing, anxiety ridden, even scary at times.
Have you ever felt that way?
But, God’s love is not like that. God’s love has a condition >> JESUS has paid that condition. Jesus has taken our punishment for sin so that the love that we receive from God is unconditional and without measure. It never runs out. It never dries up. It never stops pursuing us. It never wavers. It never grows tired. It never stops. It is long-suffering. It is steadfast. It is His very nature. His very essence pursuing us, for God is love (1 John 4:8b). We receive His unconditional love because of the righteousness that Christ has bestowed on us; Jesus has made us worthy of receiving unconditional love. And now that His Spirit lives in us, now that we receive unconditional love, the way in which we love should no longer reflect us but rather it should reflect Christ.
Humbling isn’t it?
“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing…” John 15:4-5 ESV
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