Real Love

“Real Love”

By Zach Wood

1 John 4:10-12 NLT

This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.  Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.  No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

We sure are bombarded every single day with sources claiming to show us “real love”.  From TV, movies, social media, books, magazines, etc. Everywhere we look we see some sort of message conveying what love should look like or how it should be.  Or, more than that, how it should feel.

We get a better picture when we consider the love that comes from family, friends and other loved ones.  People who are close to us often try hard to show us genuine love.  Not always, but they try. 

No matter how hard other people try to show us love, there is no greater display of “real love” than what God did for us on the Cross through Jesus Christ.  There is absolutely nothing greater, nothing.  You can search the world and the universe and find no greater display of affection and love than God Himself.  I’ve never personally known a greater love than Him.

I’ve trusted other sources of love in the past and been burned by many.  I turn one way and I think that will show me love then….burn.  I turn another way thinking I had finally found some sort of display of true love and then again….burn. 

We have all turned to many sources expecting something real with love.  We have all been burned.  Some of us have really been burned very badly.  Sometimes, we get burned so bad that we really don’t believe that true love actually exists anymore. 

Friends, God loved us so much that He showed us a form of love that had never been shown before and never will again.  God’s display of real love goes beyond anything we can ever imagine.  God’s display of love through Jesus Christ is the most real and genuine form of love we can ever possibly experience.

He not only gives His love, but then He also asks us to also show others as He has shown us.  It is a love that is truly hard to show others at times, but He asks us to do it unconditionally because He Himself has shown us that love unconditionally as well.  God’s love is true and genuine and full of life!  It is a love that He has shown to us and then commands us to pour out to others, as hard as that may be at times. 

God is truly real, authentic and genuine love to the core.