God is love. Throughout my life, I searched for love. That took me through many stages. By nature, we are born with a great need to love and be loved. However, sin leaves us with stony hearts that must be transformed before we can be truly loving like Jesus. A lesson that often takes a lifetime to learn. From the moment one accepts Jesus as Savior and Lord, His power indwells us in the form of the Holy Spirit. Yet, His spirit of love cannot shine forth through the stony fortress around our hearts. As young, helpless babies need to be cared for and need to be loved, at first incapable of truly loving in return, so are we. The task of transforming us into the image of Jesus Christ, God takes on.
With great skill, the Master Surgeon chips away at the stony edges of our heart. At times, we feel our hearts break. Yet, with gentle and loving skill, God wraps His loving hands around the broken areas. He opens areas where His light of love can shine forth to the world around us. Through many stages of love, we must walk to be transformed from need love to being able to truly love. We face many forms of love-from friendship love, familial love, and Eros. Each stage for the believer, God uses to transform our hearts, so we may become loving like Jesus loves.
My love for Mom was so combined with my need love; because, I could not see clearly until God had taught me further lessons of love in other areas of my life. What a wise, patient and gentle teacher He has been! Therefore, loving like Jesus is an impossible task for our hearts without God’s guiding hand transforming us first.
5 lessons from God Regarding Loving like Jesus
Lesson 1:
Before I can become loving like Jesus, I must first comprehend His depth of love for me. Perhaps at times this seems to be the hardest of tasks; because, my sin nature wants to feel validated in that love. In other words, I want to feel deserving of that love. Yet, the truth is: I am not. Were it not for His pursuing me, I would not by nature ever desire Him, although He is the greatest treasure and so worthy to be desired. Because, He fought for me, He died for me, and He longs that I comprehend His abounding love for me.
All that He desires is to bring me to that place of abiding, steadfast joy in Him. There is no other love that can fully satisfy the longing of my heart, though I search for it diligently in other counterfeit loves and joys. All else will leave me further broken, if His love had not reached out to save me.
“That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God” (Ephesians 3:17-19)
Lesson #2
I must come to realize that without Him, I can never become truly loving like Jesus. My heart sees only my desires to be loved. The center of my universe, by nature, is me and all else falls into the categories of how the world around me makes me feel. This interferes with our ability to see or know truth. Truth becomes what I, emotionally believe it to be. Yet, that cannot be.
If I see a light streaking across the night sky and believe it to be a falling star. Another may see the same light and believes it to be an airplane’s light. Only one of us is right. Truth demands that only one is true and that comes from outside of us, not just what we believe to be true. God is truth.
“He is the rock, his work is perfect: for all His ways are judgment: A God of truth, without iniquity, just and right is He” (Deuteronomy 32:4).
For me to learn of the truth of love, I must learn God’s truth. Therefore, I must learn to see the world through His eyes, if I seek to know truth. Only then, can I be loving like Jesus.
Lesson #3
Learning of God’s love for me and my inability to truly love with a Christ like love, then I trust Him to transform my heart. Whatever it takes, I trust His wisdom. Even when storms and trials come, I understand that He is busy transforming my stony heart into one into one of love. He will perfect us in loving like Jesus.
“I (God) will give you one heart and a new spirit; I will take from you your hearts of stone and give you tender hearts of love for God” (Ezekiel 11:19 TLB)[1]
Jesus prayed, “And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou has sent me, and hast love them, as thou hast love me” John 17:22-23).
Lesson 4:
To be perfected in love, we must know and follow His commands. That we do, as we study His word, grow in our knowledge of Him. He does the work within us as we trust in Him, spend time with Him through studying His love letters (the Bible), pray, and allow Him to transform us from the inside out.
“But whoso keepeth His word, in Him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in Him” (I John 2:5).
It is not I then; but, Christ in me that is my hope of loving like Christ with a perfect love. Therefore, laying aside all of who I am that He might live in me. I die to self, that He might live and only then, do I truly live.
Lesson 5:
Study and learn what love truly is as He laid out so beautifully in 1 Corinthians 13 and in the life of Jesus. We will address 1 Corinthians 13 next time and then we will look at the life of Jesus.
DO YOU KNOW CHRIST AS YOUR SAVIOR?
If you don’t know Jesus Christ as your Savior: I urge you to go to my page titled How to Be Saved by clicking on this link. Because there is nothing more important than this, I urge you to seek Him today.
ARE YOU IN OF NEED PRAYER?
If you have a prayer request email me by clicking here
Or if you would like to tell me your story or thoughts comment here
For previous posts regarding God’s love:
Learning the Truth in Love and Forgiveness
Can Two Broken Vessels Ever Hope to Know Love?
How to Really Love with God’s Heart
Can Broken People Love Unconditionally?
Being Rooted and Grounded in the Magnitude of God’s Love
Or for poetry
If I could Only See the Truth of God’s Love for Me
Do You Want to Know the Secret to Abiding Steadfast Joy?
A labor of love, this book provides you with 3 foundations of truth from the scripture which once known will provide you with abiding, steadfast joy. Undaunted by the storms of life; your joy will overflow.
WHEN INJUSTICE AND VIOLENCE REIGN:
Through a study of Nahum, Habukkuk, and Zephaniah; I brought their message into our modern times. Answering the questions of “Why, God?”
Providing a foundation of faith and hope; even, as we see so much evil in the world and in our nation. With so much sorrow and despair, this book I wrote to guide you into discovering God’s Perfect Plan of love; amid this chaotic world filled with life’s storms.
You may click on the picture for more information on either of these books.
ANOTHER Book Available
You can find this and all my books on Amazon.com, search Effie Darlene Barba or click this link to be taken there
OTHER RESOURCES AVAILABLE
If you want to know more about other books I have written: You can read more about each one at: Book Resources.
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©Effie Darlene Barba, 2018
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned except for my own books. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
Footnotes and Credits
Photo by Photo by dylan nolte on Unsplash
[1]The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. The Living Bible, TLB, and the The Living Bible logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers.