It comes as no surprise when we realize that God’s love is different than ours. After all, ‘His thoughts are above our thoughts, and His ways are above our ways,’ right? On the other hand, we are created in His image, so what we do should look, at least in part, like what He does. And that is how it is with love. When we love and act our love out perfectly, it is exactly like God’s love. The problem is -at least for me- consistency. So, I have set out to understand the difference between God’s love and mine and determine if we can train ourselves to love more like He does. The following two thoughts have radically changed my heart:

#1 God’s love isn’t dependent on us. It is a staggering thought. God’s love has nothing to do with our performance. He literally IS love. He couldn’t stop it, if He wanted to… and He doesn’t want to! How can He love us in spite of our actions, our blatant disregard for Him, our disobedience, our rejection even? The fact is, His love isn’t based on us. It is based on Him. When you understand that, you can understand that you are given that same option. You can actually have the integrity to decide to love based on your own decision. Some people make it easy to keep your integrity. Some people don’t. It still remains your decision whether to keep yours or not. For God, He doesn’t have to think about it. He lives in perfect truth and perfect love. Your actions won’t change Him and the actions of others don’t have to change you.

#2 God’s love is unfailing. Can you imagine never failing to love? It seems like that would be unique to God but actually it is also unique to His love, or His kind of love. That type of love never fails. It is the kind of love that really is about the other person. It is not about how I feel it is about how I love. Again, it has no requirement of the other person. It is love because I choose to love, not because I have an expectation of what that love will help me receive. Think of it this way: With God, I may be horrible at relationship. That will never make him horrible at relationship. We can make that same choice. The people that we love may be horrible at relationship… will that make us horrible? Unfortunately, usually it does! Even though it seems irrational when we put it that way. With God, our poor performance at love makes His seem all the sweeter. When we take time with Him and let His love pour over us, in spite of us, it changes us. We have that same power. Love will eventually win and that perfect love will not fail. Even when you give it.

Spend a little time thinking about this. Are there ways you can incorporate God’s loving behavior into your own? Fortunately, we can successfully ask him for strength to love as He does and He will honor that. If you have yet to experience His love, personally… I hope you will make that choice even more. He is only a prayer away, no matter how far you may have gone in the other direction. He loves you and He can’t help it. As a friend told me once, “God has YOUR picture on his refrigerator.” Ask Him now for the experience of that Love and then distribute it in the same way to others. His love comes through one Name, Jesus. The greatest lover of all time.

Be blessed and if you’re reading this, you are in my prayers and I can confidently say, “I love you, and that is my choice.” Feel free to share with someone you love, too.