Love is Bolted to Faith!

Real love is removing the focus from our concerns, anxieties, fears, hurts, stress, and worries and instead facing God with our confidence and reliance so we can then face others and believe in them.

It will enable us to appreciate others in the Lord, believing in them until the proof says otherwise. Love desires to seek and apply what God has to say. This aspect of love trusts and therefore is able and even shows up best when others don’t deserve it or are not willing to see or receive it.

There can be no real love without sacrifice, the stepping out of our will, perceived needs, and agenda and moving beyond our hurts and the potential execution of our fears. Love is to be engaged and a part of another person that we do not demand a contract or a give back from them. The world demands that the other person must meet us and fulfill us with an entitlement that says they deserve me. But God says love is not deserved; love does not require or need to be merited. If it did, it would not be real love. It requires a sense of gratitude over duty and that trusts that love is real without achieving what we want or getting back what we put in because we are infused and indwelt in Christ. He is in me, working in me so all I do is reciprocate His love without expecting reciprocation from others. Christ is all I need to be fulfilled, so I can trust Him and His love to be real even when I do not feel like it

Love is closely tied to faith because our object is Christ. He is what we trust in and hope for; Christ is what is seen when others disappoint and hurt! As faith is the promise of God that gives us the confidence to trust, we can receive it, act on it, obey Him, and trust God’s promises because God is trustworthy. This will help us perceive others by their potential, not just by the setbacks and suffering we experience and see. Like how a good parent handles a disobedient child. This helps us be implanted with hope. This right thinking and practice about love should give us the ability to believe in others even though they may not meet our expectations. The key characteristics we can glean from this is being trustworthy, dependable, and honest (Matt. 6:33; John 14:9; Rom. 3:21-26; 12:2; 2 Cor. 5:17-21; Phil. 4:8; Heb. 11:1)!

What are you willing to do to conform to Christ? How would this help you be more confident in His Way? Have you realized that His way is better than ours, better than the harboring of fears, resentments, or past or future hurts?

Do you need a wakeup call when you do the opposite of love? How is real love contagious? How can you be the person who infects others, in a good way, with God’s love? What would happen if you allowed love to spill out…even in your worst days? What does it mean to you that this is what Christ did for you?

What does it take for love to be a lifestyle? How does it help that Christ is real and living in you? What can you do to be a person who is more trusting and trustworthy?