Better Love

I have been walking something out with the Holy Spirit. This steady pursuit of my heart and my constant resisting has left me drained. I am exhausted and struggling to see truth. I welcome my Friend and my Savior, doing the will of the Father to see me changed but I sense my emotions are in the way. I know I need to change. I need to see my condition as wrong, as it is contrary to God’s character. It’s that simple. God has sent His Son and His Spirit to change my perspective to His. That will not happen until I am willing to lose mine.

I am called to love like Christ. He tells me to Love the Lord, my God, with all my heart, with all my soul, with my entire mind and all my strength. He tells me to love my neighbor as myself. Jesus did this. He loved God. He loved me. Lord, You have shown me how I love you when I receive Your love, your instruction and your correction. You have shown me how I love myself when I find You in me and I enjoy the weight of your Glory in me. You have shown me how I love others when I reflect your character to them, considering them as greater than myself and lay my life down for them. For me this has not meant my very breath but simply all that matters to me; my time, my talent my gifts, my emotions.

One of my gifts is a great capacity to love, or more specifically, to align my heart with God’s heart for His creation. This helps to explain why I fall so hard for strangers, family and friends and specifically goes to why I ache for them even though they are likely unaware of it as I continue to pursue them even when I feel rejected. It is so much easier to love those that return love, and I do not even consistently love these.

I know that the deeper we love, the deeper we can be hurt. I am not interested in hurting. I have found so many ways to be vulnerable and only one way to avoid it. Many times, I would rather retreat than risk getting hurt. It seems simple enough to withdraw rather than to say something stupid or do something pointless. My primary fear is rejection.

I am designed with an innate need to be loved. I have a deep fear I am unlovable and therein stems my insecurity. Most of the time I get my primary sense of value directly from God but additionally, there is also an element, I believe by design, where He is counting on the body to make fully known His love for me. The fruit of the Spirit if you will. But we are selfish. Moreover, I am selfish. We withhold what precious little we have rather than give it away.

I am called to change, to be transformed, to be as Christ in character and deed. To be rejected and to love even more. There is only one way for me to receive His directive. Ask for forgiveness. The point of this (or any) time of reflection is to drop my agenda and pick up His. I pray for the humility to know my need and serve His. I ask to be forgiven and restored. I ask for a changed heart to be as you Lord. Not behavior modification, but healing.

Better love is selfless love.

Php 2:5-8
Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.

Rev 12:11
And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony; and they loved not their life even unto death.