Love Better, Love Harder

^“13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

John 15:13

How great is our love? Do we even understand what it means to love? Can we truly love as God loves us? These are questions that have plagued me in the past, and I have a feeling I am not alone. In our pilgrimage from the cross to Kingdom gates we experience life. In life we must not only love, but be loved. Right there is the key.

In understanding how to love we must first understand what it means to be loved. We, as Christians and non-Christians alike, must learn to abandon the notion that we must love harder and better than all others. Instead we must learn to receive love the best we can. In return we will find that we are able to love harder and better than we ever thought possible. Now stop. Think. Digest.

In the game of love you can only provide what you know. If you have never known what it means to be loved how can you possibly ever love someone else? It could be said that there is a correlational relationship between how you experience love and how you provide it. One can love only to the extent to which they have been loved.

Look around you. Think of the people you know who have horrible relationships. Now think of their life past and what level of love they have received. I would theorize that in most cases these people come from broken homes, or homes that failed to adequately provide a loving base. But there is hope. All it takes is a little love and all can change.

In a wedding that I recently officiated there was a bride who only knew the love of abandonment and a groom that only knew the firm hand of a drunken father. Neither had a strong base for love, which would seemly blow my theory out of the water, especially since their love is greater than many others I have seen. That is until you investigate and find that the groom had a woman that interrupted his life and gave him the greatest gift; unconditional and fully vested love. She was his support. She was his example. Through this love the groom learned to love and passed it on to his bride to be. Now they are a happily married couple with a future.

But what if a person does not have that loving saint coming from left field to teach them love? Does that mean they are incapable of love? No. Christ says, “Greater love has no one than this.” He then indirectly states that in laying down His life He does it for His friends. We are friends of God! As such He gave His greatest love; a love that we now can model. He gave His life, and now we can give ours.

God is love! If you are ready to learn how to love better and harder than ever before then all you must do is turn to the heavens. In receiving Christ we receive the greatest love. With that reception we then can learn to love better and harder.