It’s Still the Month We Love!

February is the shortest month of the calendar year, and in spite of the long days of winter it seems to pass by very quickly. What we should never let pass us by is the message of love that this month brings:

Delightfully loved ones, if he loved us with such tremendous love, then “loving one another” should be our way of life! No one has ever gazed upon the fullness of God’s splendor. But if we love one another, God makes his permanent home in us, and we make our permanent home in him, and his love is brought to its full expression in us. 1John 4:11-12 (TPT)

Don’t you just love The Passion ‘Translation? The flowery words literally sing to you. Here John is reminding us not only to love others, but that we are “delightfully loved ones“. This is the reason we can love others, because God so richly and completely loves us!

What a privilege that LOVE itself “makes its’ permanent home in us”, and in so doing “we make our permanent home in him“. This mutual existence allows us to bring love to “its full expression”!

That does not mean hearts and flowers every day. Some days its’ a fast away from the crowd being tempted by the devil. Sometimes its’ bearing stripes upon our back for the healing of the nations. Sometime its’ even going to a rugged cross for something that we didn’t do. While these are not literal things that happen to us, sometimes the things that happen to us feel like that. Sometimes the lies that are told, the rebuff that we feel, the hazing that we endure seem like that. What must our response be – to love anyway – for the God who is LOVE incarnate lives in us and we in Him and there is nothing else we can be but who He is!

Maria