Success! part 3
As simply as I can put it... sometimes it seems like love is not enough because we put an impossible expectation on it. We "love" in order to GET, instead of loving in order to GIVE what we have! Look at 2 Corinthians 12:15 in the NLT, "I will glady spend myself and all I have for you, even though it seems that the more I love you, the less you love me." I literally can't say it any better than that. I've found many times in my life that love is one of the most misunderstood actions in the whole universe. When I love someone, it seems as though they immediately think I have an ulterior motive. What they don't understand is that love doesn't HAVE a motive, love IS the motive. But they always try to figure out what I'm up to. The more I love people, the less they seem to love me. And I THINK this comes from the idea that most people have that goes like this: "I'm not worthy of love." And I think THAT idea comes from the fact that we know the worst things we've ever done. Because we did them. So when we think about love, we think about ourselves at our worst and we can't believe anyone COULD love us. Love--even though it is the desire, and the cry of our hearts--seems too good to be true. So when someone gives it to us (ESPECIALLY when someone gives it to us without expectation) we don't trust it. It doesn't make sense. Remember Eve in the garden of Eden? When the serpent hissed in her ear and told her she had to DO in order to BE... that she had to EARN God's love and acceptance... she swallowed that lie immediately and whole heartedly. "Of COURSE I have to do something to be like God!" Even though man was made in God's image. We were already like Him. We just didn't know it because it was dark and we couldn't see. We couldn't see God, and we couldn't see ourselves. It wasn't until the light of the world began to shine. It wasn't until the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And then, even better, through the cross the Word took up abode IN us! The light (that was always buried deep down inside us) began to shine and we could finally see. The Word accomplished, and prospered, what it set out to do. And what it set out to do... was prosper us! Give us something better than what we could ever ask for or even think about. Jesus came to give us life and that more abundantly. And LOVE is what makes abundant life abundant. Everlasting life is knowing the Father and the One whom He sent. Living in the context of Sonship. Knowing who we are, and knowing who our Daddy is. That's what love set out to do. And that's what love DID. Remember when Jesus said, "It is finished"? The King established the Kingdom. And that's WHERE we are, and that's WHO we are! So when we're thinking about love never failing... we ought to think about spending ourselves and all we have on each other. Jesus said there is no greater love that a man can have than laying down his life for his friends. That's what He did for us on the cross, and that's what we do for each other every time we put someone else first. Every time we esteem others higher than ourselves. Every time we love without expectation. Not trying to "get" anything. But giving what we've got. Receiving and releasing the love of the Father. And when we do that... that's when love never fails. It may not always do what YOU think it should, but it always does what it's supposed to do. A light in the darkness. Revealing things as they really are.