Today I have  witnessed the beautiful wedding of a very dear friend.  It was a powerful celebration that made me shed joyful tears because I have seen how desperate and passionate she was to get married again.  She went through a lot in the past yet stayed full of faith and hope that one day her breakthrough will come and YES IT DID before my very eyes.  It was indeed a testimony like no other.

The celebration was very simple yet pure with no pretense.  The setting was very casual but the atmosphere was full of love and the air was filled with joy in God’s presence where He was Star of the celebration for His manifest goodness.  It was a union of two individuals, geographically far apart from each other but God answered both their prayers and orchestrated them to be together forever.

One of the impacting words that the bride shared with me that put a mark in my heart was … “Oh how God loves me.  He answered my prayers.”

At first one may think that these words mean a conditional love of God that only because He answered her prayers, God loves her.  On the contrary, because I knew her for years, I have always known that the foundational truth that she has always been banking on was that God loves her.  During those times when she was at her worst situation, she continually praised God KNOWING that ONE DAY God’s love will manifest physically, before her very eyes, and bring forth the man that she has been praying for.

When God pours His love in our hearts in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, He enables us to walk in love.  He anoints us to respond to His love by loving Him back and loving the ones in front of us.  Without Him loving us first, we cannot love Him back let alone love the ones in front of us the very way He loves us unconditionally.  Our capacity to love is dependent on the deposit of His presence in our lives and when we’re filled, we flood out.  Then loving becomes a delight.

Sometimes we complicate what it means to love.  We get so consumed by our feelings that when we don’t feel it, we don’t have it.  But faith works through love.  Faith believes in a God that we do not see.  That means we also can love without having to feel.  What I’ve learned is that, when we make the word of God the highest authority in our lives, then what it says, it shall be.  When His word says He loves us, who are we to argue?

“For God SO LOVED the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

When He says it, believe it and don’t sweat it.  And the best part of it is that God powerfully demonstrated His love for you and me by sending us Jesus Christ.   His love carries SUBSTANCE.  His love carries TRUTH.  He just didn’t say it.  He showed and manifested it.  All we need to do is believe and receive what has been given and what we receive will empower us to reciprocate and demonstrate.

Do you know that when we’re patient, we express love?

When we’re kind, we show love.

When we don’t envy or boast, we convey love.

When we aren’t arrogant or rude, we relay love.

When we don’t insist on our own way, we exhibit love.

When we aren’t irritable or resentful, we display love.

When we don’t rejoice at wrongdoing, we lay out love.

When we rejoice in truth, we unveil love.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.  It never gives up.  It never fails.

When Jesus suffered and died at the cross, He bore ALL things and endured ALL things FOR THE JOY THAT WAS SET BEFORE HIM that you and I be reconciled back into our Heavenly Father’s embrace in full confidence, ALL BECAUSE OF HIS GREAT LOVE FOR US, His children.  He longs to be known as a Perfect Father Who loves.

“See what GREAT LOVE the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And THAT IS WHAT WE ARE!” (1John 3:1 NIV)

Prayer:  Father, thank You for loving me.  Thank You for showing me what it means to be loved and to love.  Thank You for unveiling my eyes to see that Jesus indeed is LOVE PERSONIFIED that when I received Him in my heart, I opened my heart for Your love to fill me as the Holy Spirit pours Himself in me without measure that will enable me to flood out what has been deposited.  Thank You for lavishing me with Your love by calling me Your own.  I dedicate myself to You in Jesus’ Name.  Amen!