Love Like a Fountain

We are so blessed to serve a God of love. His greatest commandments are to love Him with all we've got and to love one another sacrificially. Simple, but not easy. And yet, what a wonderful gift even these commands are!

I find again and again that the more intention I put into action and the more I love those around me - even when it's hard, even when I don't feel loving, the more love there is inside of me. What an amazing irony; the more love I give away, the more love I have!

I was fortunate enough to do a word study on Love once - looking at the different forms and uses of the word throughout the Bible and learning what we could from them. It was incredible! God's love for us, first of all...well, my eyes are welling up just thinking about it! And what that enables us to do in our own hearts and what we can then pour into the lives of others... wow. It's an honor and quite the gift.

These days, I am personally spending quite a bit of time thinking about love and what it means to love intentionally, what it means to love sacrificially, and what it means to love in service.

This is the verse that caught my eye this morning: "For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love" Galatians 5:13 (NLT). The word "liberty" is used in other translations. Because of Christ, and by the Grace of our Abba-Father, we are set free in Him. No doubt the world encourages us to believe that freedom is about being unattached to and let loose from others. I believe the message of Biblical, Godly love is more the opposite. We are given freedom. We are also given the freedom of choice. The greatest path to freedom (and this isn't theology, but my own suspicions based on both the Word and my own experience) is to exercise that choice and to choose to be bound in service and in love. We are each to be bound in loving servitude to the Lord, but also to one another.

Love is an action - not a feeling. I find that the more I live out the actions of love, the more I feel love. But, if I only acted lovingly when I was feeling lovingly, I'd miss many, many opportunities to serve the lives of others, and quite frankly, to fill up my own heart. We are free. Hallelujah, we are free! And never is freedom more glorifying to the heart of God than when we choose to give from our place of liberty. And the more we give it away, the more we have to pour out. What an amazing God we serve!