Johnny Lee, the American country music singer has a song called “Lookin’ for Love” with the following lyrics:
I was lookin’ for love in all the wrong places. Lookin’ for love in too many faces. I was alone then, no love in sight. I did everything I could to get me through the night.
It’s human nature to need and desire love. Many of us may even admit that we have searched for love, acceptance, or affirmation in the “wrong places” and came up empty and bankrupt. Fortunately, a better option is available to all. There’s someone who wants to lavish their love on each one of us – The Creator of the heavens and the earth. The One who made us in his image and after his likeness, is the very essence of love.
I John 4:16 states, “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”
It’s hard to wrap our minds around this supernatural, lavish love, because we are accustomed to receiving and giving imperfect, conditional love. But the Lord looks beyond our faults and loves us for who we truly are. He reveals this perfect love towards us through the sacrificial life and death of Jesus Christ. Romans 5:8 states, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Invitation to Intimacy
The nature of the love of God is to draw us into a close relationship with him. It’s not enough to have a mental acknowledgement of his existence, but he invites us to open the doors of our hearts to him. Through faith in Jesus Christ and a surrendered heart, acceptance of the invitation takes us into a realm of intimacy with God that becomes experiential encounters of his exceptional love and presence. As we daily come to him and abide in him, he continually transforms our character to become more Christlike. He heals the wounds of our soul. Most importantly, he fills the void in our lives and makes us whole in a way that nothing or no one else can.
In Revelation 3:20 Jesus states, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”
LET’S PRAY – Father God, what an honor it is to be loved by you. Your love is astounding, yet it is more real than the air we breathe. I ask that you give us a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of you. Help us to grasp how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ is. May we know this love that surpasses knowledge and be filled with all the fullness of you, O God in the name of Jesus. Amen
