Abiding in the Love of God
“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” – 1 John 4:16
When Valentine's Day comes around, we think about love. We are best able to love, even romantically, through the ultimate source of love.
Our pursuit of a relationship with God lives in our capacity to love. If we desire to abide in the love of God, a starting point is paying attention to how our thoughts, words, and actions line up with God’s definition of love.
How we think of, speak to, and treat others reflects what is in our hearts. Thanks to our fallen human nature, we are all somewhere in the process of perfecting our love game. When we get stuck in patterns of faulty love, we can surrender our defective hearts to God in exchange for access to His perfect love. The Scriptures capture God’s love toward us with rich descriptors such as everlasting, enduring, and an eternal covenant that offers the assurance that we can rest in Him.
Let’s take a closer look at the eternal nature of God’s love and explore how we can expand our capacity to love by abiding in Him.
Love That Endures
Love can be like a performance sport where endurance is key to success. Competing forces often place heavy demands on those who dare to engage. Athletes train religiously, often eating specific nutritional diets and drinking sports drinks with electrolytes to support and build up their endurance. Likewise, a believer’s depleted strength can be replenished and faint heart restored by abiding in the refreshing waters of God’s love.
Abiding in the love of God also increases our endurance when the road gets rough and adversities knock the wind out of us. Although difficult emotional experiences may exhaust our capacity to love, there is always hope of recovery for those who persevere in the strength that comes from our faith in a God—the one who promised never to leave us nor forsake us.
Finite vs. Eternal Love
Some of life’s lessons teach us the potential dangers of vulnerability: we learn to close our hearts to protect ourselves from being hurt or offended. The good news is that while our finite love has limited endurance, the love of God is incredibly durable. It is not broken down or damaged by anything, ever. Paul presents a compelling argument in Romans 8:38-39 to suggest that nothing can separate us from the love of God. A sincere belief in this promise offers eternal benefits, transcending all limitations. Ultimately, we are never without the option to filter our experience through the lens of God’s enduring love.
Because His love endures all things, we can rest in Him in times of weakness and stretch our capacity to love well beyond our human limitations. We can forgive those who hurt us, overcome the grief of losing those who depart from us, and love those who do not deserve our love. We can do all of this because we have access to an unlimited supply of love not diminished by our circumstances.
Love That Lasts
In God, we have a pristine flow of love that is sustainable over time. This love does not change, dissipate, or depend upon ideal circumstances to survive. God has made this love available to us and intended for us to use it when He called us into loving relationships. Understanding that love literally lasts forever challenges us to see the larger picture of God’s desire for a family that is bound together by His love. God’s love affords us eternal power that helps us to love beyond our human capacity.
Love Never Fails
Love is a phenomenal life force that is every bit as important to our existence as oxygen. From the moment we take our first breath, we learn that we need air to survive. If only we held love with such urgency.
Our human capacity to love is limited, and we are incapable of living up to God’s standard for love. The more we die to our old sinful nature, in humble submission to God, the more we make room for God’s love to flood our hearts and change the way we think, speak, and behave.
Abiding in the love of God enables us to tap into an endless supply of love that endures all things and never, ever fails.