Love is Invincible
Flood waters can't drown love. Love can't be bought or sold. SOS 8:7 (MSG)
Whoa! This was a deep study I was drawn into on love. The challenge question was to ask the Holy Spirit to teach us what God created love to be like. Having just come off over two weeks of grand baby love, my first thought was that there isn't much more pure a love than that of a young child towards a parent or grandparent. The bond is really unexplainable.
I posed myself the questions:
"What do we learn about love from life? Which loves have we tasted that are conditional?"
The conditional list grew and grew as this debate began.
Friendships and the love that grows out of them are established due to surrounding conditions. The durability of most are based on the way we treat one another.
Teachers/Coaches: Last night we were watching a rerun of a TV show called Friday Night Lights, about a football coach and his wife who is a guidance counselor/principal. The relationships these two careers afford an adult to establish with young people can have life changing impact. At one point in a story line last night, I said about the coach, "Why can't he just say, 'I love you' to that player?" Watching events unfold and thinking about my personal school experiences, most students would probably say that love from coaches/teachers is very performance based.
Sibling Love: for years I've told our children I have two requests of them. One is to love the Lord with all their hearts. The other is to love and stand by one another all their lives. Sibling love is powerful, but not always played out to completion in life.
Body Of Christ: this certainly should come under the unconditional column, but just walk in any church or Christian organization and you will see otherwise. Committees take away commitment to this love.
Spousal and Parental Love: are the two, in my opinion, which come the closest to unconditional love, but I know some of you are gasping right now, saying "Really?"
There are some pretty prevalent conditions, which sway those categories over to the conditional category.
Unconditional
The love which is committed and has no conditions, is powerful and stands the test of time, is not performance based, and endures no matter how poorly we treat Him or greatly we disappoint Him, is God's love. He forgives over and over again, welcoming us back into the fold, longing for us to look into His face and feel perfect, invincible love.
The next question is...."Why do we spend so little time cultivating our relationship with the One who loves us so well?"
