What does love have to do with it?

Tonight I just have a questions to those of you who bother to respond to blogs.  Not the Tina Turner question, but "Is the love you have for your children (niece, nephew), your husband or wife, your parents, and your friends the same?"  The bible talks about different kinds of love, but we strive for God's unconditional love.  Have you ever examined if you show love differently to the different people in your life? Why do we do that, and is it fair?  Do you think that if we do it is acceptable in God's sight?

But When......

But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared.......

This passage jumped out at me when I was reading Titus 3.  Has kindness ever appeared to you?  Has love ever just appeared?  Has someone's love and kindness toward you ever just surprised you and changed your whole mood or demeaner?  That is what the Lord Jesus can do for you.  His love is amazing.  He is Love....the essense of real love.  The perfect, unfailing love of God is just waiting to transform our love toward one another!

Titus 3:3 For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. 4 But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, 5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior

A Quote I saw the other day.......

"Don't be afraid to fall in love with something and pursue it with intensity." - E. Paul Torrance

I saw this quote and said "wow", that is so true.  How often in this life do we fall in love?  Do you know how many people in this world never allow themselves to love, nonetheless, pursue it?  Have you ever been in love with someone or something?  .....and then just "enjoyed it" and "pursued it"?  I have and it is the best thing ever....  No matter the end of it....enjoy it in the "right now". 
Hopefully what you fall in love with and pursue is not harmful and destructive.  That brings us to the ever present need for the One who loves us and pursues us.  He will give us guidance to know what is worth pursuing....if we seek Him for it.  We are to love with the same intensity He loves us with.  This is loving with intensity:

1 Corinthians 13:4-8;13 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, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails……..

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Hesitation....

I have always loved love, but was not always so ready to show it.  On the flip side of that....once I decided to "love you", I was all in!  lol.  Looking back another key factor was 'really understanding what LOVE was'.  Is this love, or is it lust?  Is this love or is it infatuation?  Is this love or am I acting on a 'whim'?  Is this love or am I rebounding looking for 'someone' to pick up where 'another one' left off?  So many questions based on a four letter word.....  No matter the question, I will always welcome love.  For a minute I was deceived and 'locked up' my heart, but the Lord so lovingly showed me how wrong that is.  See for every question about love, the answer is found in our Lord.  Love is always there and ready to give you understanding so whether you are going all in, or not, your answer is just a prayer away. 

I often have a question

It stays on my mind

Can you love without exception?

And is your love as strong as mine?

 
An excerpt from Without Exception Copyrighted © 2003 by Wanda L. Scott from A Lifetime of Relationships: Letter’s, Poems and Words of Love

Jesus Gives Us the Freedom to Love

1 John 4:15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. 17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. 19 We love Him because He first loved us. 20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 21 And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.

Isn't it always easier to say I love you when you know that the other person loves you already?