It seems strange that the most universally desired thing, is also the most feared. We write songs about love and tell and retell great love stories throughout the ages.
The greatest love story of all time can be found in the Bible and is about God's desire for someone to share His great love with. Love by itself, is empty and even God needed someone to lavish His love upon. When God decided to create a family of His Own, He knew it would require everything He had to keep it. Love demanded that nothing was to held back in order to accomplish this.
Love requires faith in order to accomplish what is is meant to do. Hebrews 11:6 (Amplified) says, "But without faith it is impossible to please and be satisfactory to Him. For whoever would come near to God must (necessarily) believe that God exists and that He is the rewarder to those who earnestly seek Him (out)."
Even though we state we "believe in" Him and declare our faith in Him, we are still afraid to trust His love. We read the promises God gave us in His Word, but we're afraid to trust them. We fashion ways to "save face religiously"and not let anyone know we're afraid. Truthfully, we're afraid God won't heal us or take care of us or that our prayer won't work this time.
Love is the most powerful thing in the entire universe. 1John 4:8 (Amplified) says, "He who does not love has not become acquainted with God (does not and never did know Him) for God is love."
It stands to reason that because God is love, love (God) is the most powerful force in all creation. Our concept of love has been so limited, that we don't trust it. We enter into even today's marriage, we enter it by faith. We want to believe the very best of our spouse, but the small seed of doubt seems to constantly be there. It's nearly impossible to trust someone you can't love fully and it's impossible to fully love someone you can't fully trust.
I find it strange that God had such faith in the power of His love and His Person, that by faith He gave Himself believing we would respond to it. He has shown Himself trustworthy for thousands of years and we still don't trust His love for us.
Love demands our being transparent and our tearing down the walls we've put up around ourselves. We build walls from our childhood to adulthood. I built walls in my own life so that others were prevented from getting close to me. I thought the walls kept me safe, but eventually realized they held me prisoner. My walls of safety became my own self made prison.
Love demands that all those walls must come down. If you love like you're supposed to, then you are vulnerable for people to get in and some of them will undoubtedly hurt you. We take down the wall only slightly because we're afraid of someone hurting us. We trust God's love will take us to heaven when we die, but we don't trust it will care for us here and now.
I'm not saying that we Christians don't love God, only that it's not the way God desires our love. We all restrain our faith when it comes to trusting Him. We all have our own excuses why we don't believe certain provisions in His promises, but they are just that...excuses.
When God gave His love on our behalf, He left nothing undone. He gave it all.
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