Devotional 5: Receiving the Love of God

How would you define the word love? If you’re anything like me, it might bring to mind songs, movie quotes, or even relationships that are meaningful in our lives. Love can fuel the fire of a passionate relationship and anchor people together in challenging circumstances — yet, so often, the love we receive from one another is less than perfect.

I’ve experienced this in countless ways in my own life. Over years, I’ve learned to care deeply for people around me, only to be ignored, feel like I don’t belong, or be left behind while they move on to a new season in life. The love I received was meaningful as long as it lasted, but for me, the relational struggles I faced left a painful edge to the idea of fully loving someone.

As someone who’s grown up in a Christian home, I’ve heard love most often talked about as something that comes from God. Phrases like “God is love” and “for God so loved the world” are words that I can rattle off without a second thought sometimes, even while wrestling through trying to find love around me. But what do these even mean when trying to love and be loved by the people around me feels so difficult?

In the last few weeks, I’ve slowed down and pondered what these words I hear so often actually mean. The Bible talks about love from the very beginning, because He wove the desire for love into the fabric of who we are. We’re made to be like God in the same way a child is like their parent (Genesis 1:27), and just as God longs to love the people He created, we long to receive that love. He created us to be in relationship with other people (see Genesis 1-2), and the care and understanding we experience in those relationships is meant to be a blessing from Him.

But at the end of the day, we can search to the end of the world for love and still come up feeling thirsty. Human emotions were never meant to satisfy us. As people made to be like our Creator, we can only be satisfied in what He’s designed — the gift of Himself.

People often talk about Jesus demonstrating a life of sacrificial love. Throughout His time on earth, He did reveal God’s heart of unconditional care for the people that most others didn’t make time for. Then He went and laid down His life for the sake of the entire world, something no one else in history can lay claim to having done. He paid the highest price to truly show us love, and yet oftentimes, we push it to the back of the shelf and insist that the things of earth must be better.

1 John 3:1 says, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God.” Though this is a verse I’ve heard countless times, it’s in the last few weeks that I’ve learned to really slow down and think about what this means. He’s lavished His love, freely, beyond anything we can measure, without conditions or holding back. No human I’ve met has loved me perfectly in this way, and it makes me wonder… why would I spend so much time trying to be recognized and valued by this world when I’ve always been treasured completely by the One who created me?

Ultimately, receiving the love of God is something that requires us to recognize that this world isn’t enough. Instead of just brushing aside words I’ve heard so often and striving to earn something from people around me, I’ve chosen to find moments to slow down and let His promises actually sink in. If a person in my life told me they would lavish their love on me, I’d stop and listen — so why not do the same with God?

Regardless of whether or not we feel worthy of God’s love, He’s chosen to give it to us — and that’s something that will never change. Today, my encouragement is simple: make space to receive the gift God’s offered you, to find true rest in the love He’s created to satisfy your heart.​