To love and be loved.

There are thousands upon thousands of love songs in many languages all around the world about different kinds of love. Love is not a foreign concept to us humans. It is in us. At the very core of us lies the capacity to love and be loved.

Jeremiah 31:3 says, “The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.”

I love that verse. It tells us that God has loved us with an everlasting love. The word everlasting is a synonym of eternal or timeless. God’s love for us knows neither beginning nor end. We know that God doesn’t just love us when we are born. He loved us even before we were even conceived. Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

So even before I was in my mother’s womb, God knew me. He knew you. And even back then He loved us. His love already existed because He is love. Now if we grasp that concept of God’s love for us then how much more meaning does this verse have: Psalm 139:13-14 which says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

God didn’t just throw some dust and random character traits together and say, “That’ll do”. He took His time with each and every single one of us. He carefully knit you together and put together all the things He knew would make you, you. He loved you before you even existed and when He knit you together, He was specific with the details. You are no mistake. No character trait, be it one you like or dislike, is a mistake. Your existence here on earth is not coincidental. You are loved and carefully thought out. Right on time and a part of God’s master plan. You are unique and one of a kind. You are God’s favorite.

God is our very first love. Not because we loved Him first but because He first loved us. 1 John 4:10 says, “This is love: He loved us long before we loved him. It was his love, not ours. He proved it by sending his Son to be the pleasing sacrificial offering to take away our sins.” We were created to love and be loved. It is God’s desire that we might come to know Him and know His deep unending, everlasting love for us. I thank God for the day our eyes were open and we finally realised that the very thing we needed the most is the very thing that God gives in abundance- love.

Love may not make the world go round but love surely makes life worth living. The right kind of love that is; the God kind of love. Love is central to our Christian walk with Jesus. Jesus summed up the law into two categories: love God and love people. Love. The greatest evidence we can have that we are children of God is love.

We talked a few weeks ago about loving people who are hard to love, #gottalovesandpaper. We can’t run away from the concept of love if we truly believe in Jesus Christ. He is love and He commands us to love (John 13:34). It may be difficult but with Him it’s never impossible. The apostle Paul sums up our Christian walk for us in 1 Corinthians 13:13 which says, “Until then, there are three things that remain: faith, hope, and love—yet love surpasses them all. So above all else, let love be the beautiful prize for which you run.”

We are created to love and be loved. The more we come to know God’s love for us, the more we can love God and love those around us.  I called this message, “To love and be loved”. But really, it is only when we allow ourselves to be loved by God and fully embrace His love that we can truly love others and receive their love.

Love and blessings

Melissa Tsingano.