Unconditional Love

John 13:35 NASB

35 By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

GROWING IN LOVE

Unconditional love has been a mystery to me at times. How do you love someone who has hurt, misused, abused, betrayed or lied to you over and over again? Yet that is what Jesus expects of us: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who despite-fully use you and persecute you" Matthew 5:44. Jesus desires that we love one another as He loves us and that we show the same forgiveness, mercy and compassion to everyone, as He has shown towards us.

"Agape" in the Greek describes God's unconditional love. It is not like "Eros" or "Storge" love which is based on emotions (i.e the way we feel toward a person), but it manifests itself through action. It is not dependent on the one being loved but on the one doing the loving, which means that we need to love regardless of the way we feel towards a person. God's love is unmerited and given freely to all who are willing to receive it and it cannot be earned as we see in Romans 5:8 "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." God loves us unconditionally because God is love.

When Peter denied Jesus three times, after Jesus was resurrected He wanted to restore Peter because of His great love for Peter. Jesus asked Peter three times "do you love Me"? Each time Peter answered "yes" Jesus gave a command that required Peter to act upon the love that he had professed (John 21:15-17). Jesus wanted Peter to display his love for Him by feeding, tending and again feeding Jesus' sheep. For Jesus love was evident in serving others. We see the description of Gods unconditional love detailed in

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 "Love is patient,love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking,it is not easily angered,it keeps no record of wrongs.6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

THE LOVE TEST

We can put God's name in front of each one of these attributes and know them to be true of Him: God is patient, God is kind, God does not envy, etc., but can we put our own names there and measure up? For example:

Janine is patient Janine is kind  Janine does not envy Janine is not proud   Janine does not dishonour Furthermore, are we able to put a persons name that we really don't like or struggle to love at the end of each of these statements, e.g. Janine is patient with Sophie? Personally, I know I fall short in some of these areas, yet God is saying that this unconditional love is possible in and through Him, because He first loved us. If we are able to love as He loves, not only would all men know that we are His disciples but we would be revealing Christ to the world.

The love that God expects us to have for one another is impossible to achieve without the help of the Holy Spirit, because it comes from God (Romans 5:5). When we receive Christ into our hearts through salvation and are filled with the Holy Spirit we receive a deposit of the fruit of love. Because love is a fruit, we have to remember that it does take time to grow, so we need to continue to water it by spending time in Gods presence, reading and meditating on the Word (especially on scriptures pertaining to agape' love) and in prayer. We as believers can also stir up one another to love and do good works according to Hebrews 10:24.

Often it is our flesh that works against the fruit of the Spirit as seen in Galatians 5:13-26; so as we continue to pray, surrendering ourselves to God and bringing our flesh into submission, the Holy Spirit will be able to remove every hindrance and barrier that prevents us from loving unconditionally. There may be someone in your life that you are really struggling to love and it may seem like an impossible situation, but be encouraged by the scriptures above and know that "with God all things are possible" Matthew 19:26b. Persevere in prayer for that person and surrender every negative feeling and thought over to God. He will, by the power of the Holy Spirit change your heart toward them, bring healing and restoration; and help you to put love into action! God bless you!