Life is found in love. Many studies have shown that all living things respond to love. Children flourish in loving homes. Wounded adults begin to heal and thrive simply by having someone love and believe in them. Even plants will flourish if spoken to with kindness rather than hate or indifference.
Resurrection life is found in love. The kind of love that brings forth growth in the seemingly dry and dead places. Such is the love of our God. And as His children, we are called to reflect this love – to be His hands and feet. When we choose to love the unloveable, we see His resurrection life bring radical change. Just as we saw the change in our own lives when we received the love of God in the form of His salvific grace.
The question is, will we choose to pay the cost. Because love comes at a price. That price may be humility in the face of loving someone operating in pride. Or it may come in making ourselves vulnerable to someone we aren’t sure we can trust. Love is a risk. Love exposes us. But that risk is especially worthwhile when we see it pay off in changed lives.
However, even in the moments the risk of love doesn’t seem to have paid off (whether we’ve reached out and been rejected or made ourselves vulnerable only to be hurt), even in those moments it’s still worth it. Because love is a seed – deposited in someone’s life, and though it may not bear immediate fruit, you never know what may come of that seed later.
So consider all love as an offering to God (because it is). Even in that alone it is worth the effort, for we are reflecting the One who made us – the One who loved us first, the One who thought we were worth it even when we were a mess. And being like Him is ALWAYS worth it because that is where you find life.
John 13:34-35 (TPT) “So I give you now a new commandment: Love each other just as much as I have loved you. For when you demonstrate the same love I have for you by loving one another, everyone will know that you’re my true followers.”
1 John 4:19 (VOICE) We love because He has first loved us.