Lasting Love
When was the last time you heard someone say to you, “I love you?” Some may have opportunity to hear it every day. Others may go weeks or longer before hearing these words. Each of us desire to be loved. Valentine’s Day is a day that we focus our attention on loving and being loved. We express it through the exchange of cards and gifts. At least one time of the year we put great emphasis on loving the family. Someone has said, “No act of love is ever wasted.”
The source of lasting love is rooted in God’s love for us and our love for Him. The Lord wants to put genuine love in every life. In one of the prayers that Christ Jesus prayed, recorded in John 17, Jesus said to the Heavenly Father, “I have declared to them Your name...that the love with which You loved Me may be in them...” This is unconditional love.
How beautiful family relationships are when built on real true love. The apostle Paul instructs us as believers in Christ Jesus, “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.” What greater love can you have for your wife than that? “Let the wife see that she respects her husband.” Respect also comes from a heart of love. A psychology professor once said to his students as he was teaching a class about the family, “A husband’s and wife’s relationship is never so good that it couldn’t be made a little better.”
It is not our job to try and “mold” each other into what we want them to be. Someone has said, “God is not afraid to love us just the way we are, with all our flaws and failures. Our misguided actions do not stop God’s love for us.” He requires us to love each other with the same kind of love He demonstrates toward us. The spirit of forgiveness is the spirit of love. The spirit of patience is the spirit of love. The spirit of understanding is the spirit of love.
The apostle Paul states it best in I Corinthians 13. “Love is patient and kind. Love never is envious; it is not boastful; it does not display itself haughtily. It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude and does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable; and keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love (true love) will last forever.”
When you understand all the wonderful riches God has promised you as His child, you will be motivated to hold tightly all He has available. When you trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, you received a priceless inheritance that was prepared especially for you. It will never fade or lose its value-love.