Love. God’s love. To love another without condition of receiving anything in return. OH. MY. GOSH. I so do not love this way… even though I sometimes, kind of, maybe think I do. To love without requiring anything in return. To be love waiting to happen.
That’s God. God is love waiting to happen. To want nothing in return. Gosh, who does that? I always want something. I want to be liked, admired, well thought of, included, known. I want to be loved!
He loves even though He knows I don’t deserve it. (How could anybody deserve love? If you deserve it, it’s not love.) He loves me even though I’m a basket-case half the time and barely holding it together the other half. He loves even though my flesh will never improve. He loves me even though I could never hope to love Him as fully as He loves me.
So why does God do it? What’s in it for Him? Hahaha — trick question! Nothing’s in it for Him. If something were in it for Him, it wouldn’t be love, would it? That’s what’s so soaked into our tiny human brains — love and get something in return. Okay, here it is again: why does God love us like that? He loves us like that because God is love. God’s very nature is to love. God loves everywhere He goes. Love is who God is. He can’t be any other way.
So how could we love like that? After many years of Jesus being my Savior, and even more years walking this earth, I am not capable of God’s love. I am not love waiting to happen. I am self waiting to happen. Honestly. After all these years, what hope have I? What hope have any of us?
I’m seeing that God does not want my love for people. He wants me to stand aside and let Him love through me. Aah! That I can see! Because, really. I think of Charles Stanley’s quote: “I have been a Christian for 47 years, and I have not seen a marked improvement in my flesh.” Well, I have been a Christian close to that, and I have not improved my ability to love. I believe Stanley’s point is that his only hope it to set his flesh aside and let God live through him. Even Jesus said He could do nothing on His own, but only God through Him (John 5:30). My only hope is set aside my self-seeking, self-gratifying, cleverly disguised attempts to love when I’m really seeking my own glory in some form, and let God love through me. Isn’t love a fruit of the Holy Spirit — not Susan — after all?
In His love, Susan
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