OUR LOVE VS. GOD'S LOVE

It's me again, Diamond, the girl you don't know lol.

So, how is everyone doing? Pretty good, I hope from the weather being the way it is. I know some of you guys are probably enjoying it the most before winter season starts back up again and the people forget how to drive even though they been living in the states that have the winter season months for years lol.

However, no biggie, love them with the love of the Lord I suppose :).

Which brings me to today's discussion if you will to something that I haven't quite grasp and I will be honest it has been a struggle to do so. And, that is to love people with the love of the Lord. Now, in a matter of speaking to most people's understanding loving people with the love of the Lord is to some simply meaning to love UNCONDITIONALLY. Which is true, do not get me wrong, that is the premise of God's love, but there is really so much more depth to His love even more so to that word unconditional.

Now what is unconditional/what does it mean? Well let's go to the handy dandy dictionary source through the internet called dictionary.com lol. Unconditional means and I quote, "not limited by conditions." Don't you just love when you try to define a word and it has the actual word in the definition...like that's like me looking up the meaning of 'word,' which is defined as, "letters in a word." So lets find something that has a bit more meat or in other words more description. Unconditional means in the terms of vocabulary.com, "not modified or restricted by reservations. Whether its love, support, or surrender, if something's unconditional it's absolute and not subject to any special terms."

I like that, now that is a definition to me folks lol, however, don't get me wrong the first definition was correct as well, but the second one hit home. How many of us including myself, allowed conditions to determine how much we are going to love someone. The condition even put you at odds with someone, because that didn't meet the condition that you set up for them. Leaving you ultimately disappointed and further more even distant to love again in the way that you feel is plausible.

And, I got to be honest with you guys, I am at fault with that myself. I loved someone with conditions and still do to this day, because I am a human-being and it is apart of the human conditioning (sin nature). However, that is no excuse seeing that is, that I am a new creature and redefined by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on who I am really, but sometimes the broken pieces in who I use to be take root some how and in some way. That leaves a stain on how I/we love.

However, how we love is broken and due to that we can't truly love how God loves based off our own understanding (Proverbs 3:3-5). For loving how we love, will never be enough to bring someone to the understanding of Christ and what He has ultimately done for us, because of our lack of His love. Breaking it down even further, loving how we love brings about a few things, but I will only touch on two as a result of it. For one our selfishness, that is one thing that is brought about or even due to how we love as individuals, because its about Me, You, I type of attitude. The excuse we come up with is, "they don't deserve my love, because of what they did x years ago and I won't stand for it." When in actuality (<---the fact that, that is even a word blows my mind, because I thought it wasn't years ago, but back to seriousness). Who are we, to be so arrogant and dismissive to think that due to that whatever issue it was x years ago (speaking to myself in this case), they don't deserve love. Everyone deserves love and all honesty it is what ALL OF US crave for. It is one of the most potent desires in the human heart and that is to be loved.

So to be so prideful and overly concern about your feelings (which switches up as bad as a light switch) to why you don't love somebody the way that Christ even loves you and me to die for you and me (the Gospel) is to be completely absurd.

Our pride, we think that we are so good or some cases too bad to be loved and it is quite the opposite. Pride in essence as God broke it down to me, "was to think highly of one's self." You/I thinking that our love will change a person, will heal a person, will deliver a person is ultimately a false idea, even though we would 'love' for it to happen, but in all honesty if we love the way we as humans do, our love will tap out, become broken and it will eventually give up on that person who more than desperately needs to be loved. Either way, we are putting conditions on our love for that person who we are quote, unquote "trying to help."

Now those are just the two, but there are plenty more of what loving the way we love could bring up in a character about ourselves and others, but those are the only two that seem to really pop for now. So that leaves me with, what is God's love and how is it unconditional. For starters, when you read the bible and you go to the scripture in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, which says in the NEW KING JAMES version, "Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity (doing something you shouldn't be doing basically), but rejoices in the truth, hopes in all things, endures all things."

Now, that my friends, is love and I can tell you if we love people the way WE love them. That first beginning of that scripture will not be accounted for in our conditioning. However, for those that are in Christ and have been reborn again. This type of love, God's love, must be displayed and I am telling you I am convicted and guilty for not loving this way. I will be so real through this blog and say I have not loved this way as of late. I mean I am quick to let the old me slither and creep in making me feel selfish and prideful. However, I am so thankful I serve a patient God. I mean I read something last night that kind of stuck with me and that was during the ancient times in the book of Jeremiah. The Israelites by that time completely forgot about God and started worshiping other gods for the heck of it. So you can imagine the task of Jeremiah being difficult, because he was a prophet to a people who did not want to listen to a thing he said. I mean Jeremiah is giving them warnings that God's judgement is coming soon and they steady giving him the flick of the wrist (no pun attended with the song). So instead of God's elect listening to what His prophet was saying and repenting they let the dictates of their evil heart run them. However, it was little over 900 years since mount Sinai in Moses' time that God being who is, PATIENT, to give His people time to turn over and repent, but they never did.

First of all 900 years...is a long time. 365 days times 900 and something. And, God was patient with them and can you imagine God's heart breaking each and every day. To see only a few truly serve Him and the rest forget Him. God does His best to swallow forgiveness over the things that His people do to hurt Him. However, most people don't even know, until they know Him for themselves to truly see HOW MUCH God loves them. His LOVE goes so high, so deep, and so wide it is crazy to believe.

That my friend's is God's love unconditionally and that is what needs to be in practice rather than our own. But, I will be honest with you, its hard to apply it to those that are unkind and everything messed up and that has always been my issue to applying this Love. But, thank God for His Grace and Mercy. I know I need it and pray for me Saints to truly apply it. I need to apply more of it and not just snip pits of it, but the whole lot of it, because we all need God's love.

So let's grab God's best and apply it.

God Bless and love ya (meaning it) =),

Diamond