Love Never Fails

My journey of faith began before I even remember it beginning. I have been privileged enough to grow up in a family who cares about my spiritual well-being, so I have been going to church and hearing about God my entire twenty-one years of life. As a little girl around the age of five, this man named Jesus was especially intriguing. I was told that Jesus, the star of all my Sunday school lessons, could save me from my sins and grant me life forever in heaven; all I had to do was ask him into my heart and then I would become a Christian. In the Sunday school pictures I saw that depicted a very safe, white Jesus, he seemed so kind and wonderful. He loved children and healed the diseased and dying. He was always clothed in white with a glow around his presence. Becoming a Christian seemed like quite a great offer, so I asked Jesus to save me and take away my sins.

As I continued on in my spiritual growth, I began to compile a mental checklist of things that “good Christians” did. A good Christian didn’t swear or drink. A good Christian went to church every week, sometimes two or three times. A good Christian gave time and money, and was willing to go serve in Africa at a moment’s notice. Over the years, I allowed my faith to become based on a legalistic system of good vs. bad. As long as I did enough of the good things, God would be pleased. This is an exhausting way to live one’s life and leads to comparing oneself to other people. It also quenches the beautiful mystery and rich grace that is meant to be Christianity.

I have been learning recently that faith in Christ is not about deeds, words, or actions. Those things are part of faith, all essential parts. But it is so easy to focus on things like this and forget the most basic yet most baffling element of faith, the one reiterated to me over and over again as a little girl in Sunday school: God loves us.

I am amazed at how easy it is to forget about the love of God, how easy it is to avoid accepting it. A relationship based on love does not center on rituals and obligations; a relationship based on love centers on selfless acts of devotion, performed out of a spirit of pleasure and joy. Communication sought because of love does not contain perfunctory clichés and half-hearted mumbles; instead, love-based communication will be based on brutal, gut-wrenching honesty and confession. A person who is consumed with love will not live a life competing with others for the coveted honor of Most Holy; a person consumed with love will live with eyes solely focused upon on the only One who is and can ever be perfect and sovereign.

 One of the most well-known and most recognized pieces of Scripture is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  This verse that so many Christians have memorized directly acknowledges the love of God, but how many who know this verse truly believe it, including myself? I believe the reason for so many spiritual struggles within the Church is because we, the consistently pursued Bride of Christ Jesus, forget that we are loved. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Love never fails.” Though the Church is called to be perfect, such a calling is impossible. But God, because of his love, has called the sinful and depraved to go on and do great things for his kingdom. People such as King David and the apostle Paul were able to leave such awesome legacies because both men experienced the love of God and lived their lives continually accepting that love.

For years, I have known that God loves me but it is only now that I am fully beginning to understand what that means. God’s love cannot become real and present in my life until I choose to accept it. Accepting the love of God is not a one-time event; it is to be accepted every moment of every day. Accepting God’s love means admitting my failures and letting his grace (not my actions) make me good enough. Accepting God’s love means accepting those who I think don’t deserve it. Accepting God’s love means seeing myself as totally reliant on this big, invisible, mysterious Being who does not need me yet chooses me anyway.

As we as Christians grow and seek more truth and knowledge, may we never forget the foundations of our faith: that we are deeply loved by a holy God who offers us the ultimate redemption that begins here on this earth and climaxes in heaven. As John reminds us, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” The more we accept God’s love, the more we will know him. The more we know him, the more willing we will be to show God’s love to the most corrupt and defiled, or perhaps just to the person sitting the next aisle over Sunday morning.

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