Let Him who loves best love you
I have good news for you… He KNOWS YOU. He’s always known you. The stuff you’re ashamed of and feel condemned for doesn’t need to hold you prisoner anymore because He knows you and loves you all the same. The stuff is actually powerless to hold you in the light God’s great love for you.
He knows every part of you, even the parts you want to hide, and He still loves you. I like what Graham Cooke writes in his book Growing up in God, “One of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to utterly convince you that you are completely, compellingly loved by God regardless of how you are showing up. That means to God it doesn’t matter, in that sense, whether you are doing well or badly. He has already chosen how He is going to be towards you, and He doesn’t change.”
That’s incredibly liberating! He has already chosen how He is going to be whether we show up in a good mood or bad mood, or in cynicism or anger, or doubt or shame, or joy or childlikeness, or even if we don’t show up at all. In all of that we can be sure of one thing; He is the father who runs shamelessly to the prodigals, He is the One who forgives, makes clean, restores and loves without inhibition or regret.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. Love never fails.
We find it hard to love like 1 Corinthians 13 (above) describes, so we often project our weakness and failure to love like this onto God, but it could not be further from the truth of who He is. This verse describes His perfect love and is our high water mark. This passage describes Him who is Love. He is patient. He is kind. He does not envy, does not boast and is not proud. God does not dishonour us and is not self-seeking. He is not easily angered. He keeps no record of our wrongs. He never fails.
He epitomises LOVE in its full and untainted meaning. Our projections then, inspired by an enemy who would keep us from the freeing power of God’s love and hidden, weak, depressed and alone, are without truth.
Shakespeare’s SONNET 116 actually describes the God kind of love quite well.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
God’s love does not alter or shift or change. It is indeed an ever-fixed mark. The only thing that changes in this equation is where we stand in relation to that amazing, persistent and unyielding love.
Are we hiding in shame like Adam and Eve in the garden? Are we cut off from the warmth of His love because of the walls of our sinful lives? Are we distant and offended like the older brother in the parable described in Luke 15:11-32? Are we leaving or returning to His embrace like the prodigal?
Where are you in relation to His love?
The good news is that His love, due to its unchanging nature, is ready to embrace us even now, however we show up. Let’s just show up. Let’s let the one who loves best, love on us. Let’s let the walls fall, the offence be removed, the fear driven out, the shame and sin washed away. His love for you is as strong as death, it burns like an unquenchable fire and cannot be bought at a price (Song of Songs 8:6-7)
You were made for LOVE. Let Him who loves best love you.