God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home, and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love. 1 John 4:16b-18 MSG  

Living within you is the Christ who floods you with the expectation of glory! This mystery of Christ, embedded within us, becomes a heavenly treasure chest of hope filled with the riches of glory for his people, and God wants everyone to know it! Colossians 1:27 TPT  

I’ve been reading about God’s love, meditating on it, practicing living from it, choosing the transforming mystery of HIS LOVE. I want to understand LOVE better, live more fully from it, be centered in it, and share it with others well.

As I think about Love, I’ve also been thinking about the idea of receiving love. Sometimes just because you love someone doesn’t mean that they will receive that love from you, they may not even be able to because of their own issues. All I can do is offer love, I cannot make someone receive it, accept it, appreciate it, or reciprocate it. And that can be tough. 

So. What does love look like? How do I show up with love? 

I am reminded of how Brené Brown defines love…

“We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection. Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves. Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare.” 

We must know love, accept love, and receive love for our-self. We must know God’s love for us, deep inside, to be able to offer love well to others. We cannot give something to others that we don’t have ourselves.

We MUST spend time with God to know His LOVE. 

If we want to be changed, transformed, in any area of our life, then we must prioritize spending time sitting with God, talking to God, listening to God, reading, studying, and meditating on His Word. Asking Him for what we need, telling Him where we want to experience His transforming work in our lives. We do the work. We come to Him willing, surrendering. We seek Him and rely on Him to equip, enable, and empower us. As we do the work, God expands our capacity, takes us to new places of His freedom, Joy, Peace, and Hope.

As we sit in God’s love, He may reveal to us that we need to let go of some of the expectations we have of ourselves. We may have to practice accepting how He made us, who we are, maybe even have to learn to like ourselves, and where we are in life. We may have to practice having self-compassion. We may have to practice loving ourselves. He may reveal to us any number of things that are hindering us from experiencing His love. We may have to clean-up some things in our lives as He reveals them to us, to get to a better, more loving place. It may feel unpleasant, but the work is worth it! (Now all discipline seems to be more pain than pleasure at the time, yet later it will produce a transformation of character, bringing a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who yield to it. Hebrews 12:11 TPT)

I think Love looks like accepting ourselves as we are, broken and flawed humans redeemed by the blood of Jesus, PRAISE! 

I think Love looks like celebrating how and who I am!

I think Love looks like accepting other people as they are, no expectations, no “manual” of how they should be. 

I think Love looks like celebrating how and who other people are!

We may not have grown up in a family that loved well, or taught us how to love well, or may have used the word “love” but not exemplified Christ-like, unconditional, Love. We may have to ask God to help us to learn and understand what love, His Love, looks like so that we know how to share it well with others.

Love is a skill we practice and get better at! We practice love and then we feel love!

Ask yourself, how do I feel loved? What is loving to me? How would I want someone to show up with love for me? Then go and do that for someone else.