Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank You so much for giving us such a wonderful definition and standard of what it means to love according to Your Most Holy Word. You tell us in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7(NLT), “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.” YOU are the definitive authority on what it means to love others, and we will be continually overruled if we try to put our own spin on the subject. 1John 4:8 tells us that You are LOVE! You are the only One who can define it.
As Your beloved daughters and as young women, we sometimes get caught up in the “chemical” feeling of love. Our hormones might begin to race when we’re in the company of a man that we’re attracted to. We get that “butterflies in the tummy” sensation because we like this person a lot, and we may allow this to register in our heads as real love. In truth, it is more biological than anything else. It’s a physical thing, and there is a danger to letting our flesh dictate something You’ve deemed as important as the actual practice of truly loving a person.
In Proverbs 4:23(NLT), You tell us, “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” This mean we must be careful about what we allow in our hearts, and we must be equally attentive to what we allow to come out of our hearts. We can’t treat people any kind of way and call it love. Also, we can’t let others treat us any kind of way and think it’s love either. This is one of the dangers of labeling a feeling and calling it ‘true love’ when it doesn’t line up with Your standard.
Some of us have the wrong attitude when it comes to recognizing and giving real love. We think physical intimacy is the most significant way to demonstrate love in a relationship. We assign our own standards to it, and some of us don’t have a clue. This is one of the reasons we become so disappointed when things in our relationships don’t turn out the way we expect. We put the wrong feelings out there, and the wrong feelings come back to us. This is the truth, but a lot of us are not yet at a place where we can accept it. We need to work on getting there.
I know many young women that are being abused, some physically and some emotionally. They think it’s okay because the man they are involved with tells them “I love you”. Some women allow themselves to continue to be treated abusively because they hear those three words. Spiritual maturity in Christ will teach us that “I love you” from the lips of an abuser can never be enough, because love does not abuse. A person that abuses their partner is trying to use love to control and manipulate. Love does not injure. Love heals, supports, and protects.
Heavenly Father, please help everyone that is in an abusive relationship to get to a place of safety. Help them to open their eyes to what real love is. Your Son gave his life on Calvary, so we could live a more than abundant life and walk in his liberty every day. We were not created to be abused. We were created from Your love. We must learn to love according to Your standard, so that we can receive Your brand of love in return.
Thank You for helping us to grow in maturity so that we expect more of ourselves when it comes to the practice of love, then we will also expect more from others who claim to love us. Thank You for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and for the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Please let Your Will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In the precious and powerful name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Saying “I Love You” Isn’t Enough”, written by K. Lizzie, edited by Reverend Fran Mack for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2019. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! SMS is dedicated to inspiring and encouraging Christian Women through the Word of God.