Is it real, or just an illusion? The world offers endless definitions and interpretations, yet it’s love so often fails us. It comes with conditions, shatters hearts, and vanishes like mist.
We often mistake love for passion, for infatuation that feeds only itself. But selfishness can never be love. Love is not a transaction, not a weapon for manipulation, not a label for cheap thrills. When we shrink it down to desire or control, we rob it of its holiness, its essence.
God is love. And if we do not know love, we do not know God. If we distort it, His voice grows faint. He calls us into His presence, into the boundless depths of a love that flows from Him, through us, and to one another, a sacred exchange.
But did God leave love as some vague ideal? No, He defined it with His very life. On a cross, surrounded by His enemies, He prayed: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
While soldiers gambled for His clothes…
While His friends fled in fear…
While mockers sneered and religious leaders washed their hands…
While betrayers kissed Him and deniers disowned Him…
He loved.
Not just with words, with wounds. Not with mere sentiment, but with sacrifice. Though we were His enemies, ignorant, rebellious, and undeserving, He gave Himself willingly. With a crushed spirit and unbearable pain, He carried love to its completion.
“It is finished.”
1 John 4:7-14 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
Matthew 22:36-40 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
John 15:8-13
8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.
9 Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.
10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
11 These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.
12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
Illuminate
What is love?
Is it real, or just an illusion? The world offers endless definitions and interpretations, yet it’s love so often fails us. It comes with conditions, shatters hearts, and vanishes like mist.
We often mistake love for passion, for infatuation that feeds only itself. But selfishness can never be love. Love is not a transaction, not a weapon for manipulation, not a label for cheap thrills. When we shrink it down to desire or control, we rob it of its holiness, its essence.
God is love. And if we do not know love, we do not know God. If we distort it, His voice grows faint. He calls us into His presence, into the boundless depths of a love that flows from Him, through us, and to one another, a sacred exchange.
But did God leave love as some vague ideal? No, He defined it with His very life. On a cross, surrounded by His enemies, He prayed: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
While soldiers gambled for His clothes…
While His friends fled in fear…
While mockers sneered and religious leaders washed their hands…
While betrayers kissed Him and deniers disowned Him…
He loved.
Not just with words, with wounds. Not with mere sentiment, but with sacrifice. Though we were His enemies, ignorant, rebellious, and undeserving, He gave Himself willingly. With a crushed spirit and unbearable pain, He carried love to its completion.
“It is finished.”
1 John 4:7-14
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.
14 We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
Matthew 22:36-40
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
37 And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
38 This is the great and foremost commandment.
39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
40 On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
John 15:8-13
8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.
9 Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.
10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
11 These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.
12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
2 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 266