What Price Love?

I was meditating this morning on love.  I've had a lot of love in my life and each example has taught me and led me along the way.  My mother's love was expressed by her work and giving.  She was a hard worker and a giving person.  It was not easy for her to express her love in words and caresses.  When I grew older and knew more about her parents and her life as a child, I could understand that.  But I learned from that to say often, "I love you," to my husband and children.  My father expressed his love in sharing gems of teaching and his thoughts.  My husband, who never had love expressed to him as a child in words and action, taught me the essence of love out of his own love for Jesus.  I had found in Jesus a relationship that filled my needs and thought I would probably not marry.  But when I met my husband, I saw Jesus in him and his love for Him was expressed so quietly, (was so understated!) that I knew it ran deep.  He taught me the faithfulness of love, the sacrifice of love that was not just an outward expression, but ran so deep that it became the sacrifice of thoughts and dreams and control.  He never exerted control over me, our children or his ministry.  He let Jesus do it.  His love was expressed by his faith.  He covered us with faith that worked by love.

From that personal experience I was led by the Spirit to think of Jesus in His time on earth.  He was connected by love to His Father.  That love, expressed by Jesus in obedience, became the greatest power man had, could, or would ever know in this realm.  Love drove God to desire man in His image.  It drove God to give of Himself to create His desire.  God begot of Himself the One to bring to fulfillment His desire.  Jesus could and did manifest God to man all through the ages.  He walked with Adam, spoke to Noah, revealed Himself to Abraham and Moses and Joshua.  But not until He came to be formed in Mary's wormb, did we begin to comprehend the measure of God's love.  It is eternal, fills all space and willing to pay any price to bring to fulfillment what love has covenanted.  It cost God an immeasurable price to offer you the privilege to become "man in Our image"!

What will it cost you to become that "man in Our image"?  Is your love for Him great enough to pay the price?  This is why Jesus gave us the "bottom line" in His answer to the 'expert in the law' who tested Him.  Matthew 22:37-40 (ESVUK) 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 first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. ⁴⁰  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

This realm has a great hold on us.  It gives us the desires that drive us, the fears that bind us, and limitations that limit us.  The Love that God sheds on us reveals what our imagination cannot define, creates trust, and sets us free to do the Will of the Father.  We do not (cannot) love until His Love is revealed into us. 
I John 4:19 (NASB)  We love, because He first loved us.  When God breathed into Adam the breath of life, the living soul received abilities from God that sin has lessened, but not obliterated, in the adamic nature.
When we are born again, we receive a new nature from God.  It becomes our choice, then, which nature we will feed and express.  Jesus showed the necessity of expressing love "laterally as well as horizonally".  What we reveal to our neighbor is evidence of what we have received from God!  John knew you could not hate your brother, whom you have seen, and say you love God, Whom you have not seen.

So, what price love?  Walking in the Love of God will be the most costly experience you will ever know.  It will cost you your opinions, your fears, your personal comfort and dreams, your control, your strength and thoughts that this realm controls.  Very few people have made the effort to let this realm be swallowed in the Love of God.  We settle for a "Dr. Jekyl, Mr Hyde" existence.  One life in this everyday existence in work and play, and our "church life" that is directed to God.  We are "untrained" in letting God have control in areas where we must "keep the control".  It is actually very simple.  Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your mind."  Let His love filll you.  Exercise that love by returning it to Him in praise and thanksgiving for ALL your circumstances, and loose that love to others you meet.  Show them the respect and appreciation that the knowledge of God's love for them may only be revealed to them by you.  Do whatever your hand must do as unto the Lord as though you would be giving Him an accounting for your day's work.  Colossians 3:17 (NASB)  Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.