Unconditional love - part 1

Have you ever stopped to think about love? Love is central to our lives. Love is something we can’t live without. Love drives some people to incredible bravery, while others do some very strange things in the name of love. Love is a mystery, yet we still strive to define and capture its essence.

There are many ideas of what love is.

“Love is that feeling you get when you know you’ve met the right person.”

“Love is being able to stay committed to someone through struggles and conflict.”

Some will even say “Love doesn’t truly exist, all you can do is live each moment seeking self-fulfilment and pleasure.”

Love is a mystery, yet it’s something we all experience and have an opinion about. Because of this, talking about love is a great way of opening a conversation that leads to Jesus. Share Jesus, by talking about love.

A great way to highlight the awesomeness of God’s love is to explore how His love is different to human love. When it comes to human love, we place conditions on love all the time. When other people hurt us we can’t help but withhold or limit our love towards them. The same goes for someone who is consistently needy or selfish. As limited humans, we can’t help but love in a limited manner, but God is different.

There are two key verses in the Bible that highlight the nature of God’s love. In John 3:16 it says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”. Put simply, God loves the whole world. God’s love does not discriminate. It’s not restricted to a certain group of people or just reciprocated to those who love Him. In fact, God’s love goes a step further, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” - Romans 5:8. God's love is unconditional. Not only does God’s love extend out to every single person, but He also shows his love towards you regardless of what you’ve done.

A good way to open a conversation about love is with the question “What do you think love is?”. You could also share with them a time when you experienced conditional love, to illustrate the difference between human love and God’s unconditional love.

Commit these verses to memory (John 3:16, Romans 5:8) and share about them next time the Holy Spirit prompts you to talk about Jesus.

References:
Philippians 2:5-7
Matthew 20:28
John 10:18
Luke 23:44-46