Great Love Leads to Great Delight
/Did you know that God delights in you?
And He wants you to delight in the people He puts in your life to love, too!
Loving well in a world that doesn't define, defend, or extend love well is a hard thing to do — especially when everyday we seem to be drifting further away from the source of true love, Love Himself…
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” (1 John 4:7-12, ESV)
When we continually feed our own desires and focus only on our own interests, loving others, let alone loving them well, can seem burdensome and inconvenient, and the sheer effort it takes to love that way quickly convinces us it’s just too much work and not enough benefit for us.
But praise God there’s a better way, and it is the best way, because it was defined, defended, and extended by “the Way, Truth, and Life” Himself — Jesus Christ. That’s right, God the Father is love, His Son showed us the way to love, and the Spirit gives us the power to love. The very Trinity transcends the worlds ability to love and love well by loving us perfectly that we might love others completely, not for selfish reasons, but because He first loved us.
I believe when we love right it leads to great delight! At least, that's what I believe God's love models for us…
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” (1 John 3:1-3, ESV)
He loves us to Himself, and His love invites us to be His children…
Adopted into His family (Ephesians 1:5, Galatians 4:5-7, and Romans 8:14-17)
Grafted into the vine (Romans 11)
Reconciled and redeemed (Colossians 1:20-22, Ephesians 1:7, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19, Romans 5:10)
Secure and set free (John 8:36, Galatians 5:1, John 8:32, Romans 6:22).
God not only loves us deeply, He delights in us completely.
“For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.” (Zephaniah 3:17, NLT)
The dictionary definition for the verb delight is “to please someone greatly.”
I love knowing that simply because God loves me, and He desires a relationship with me, I can come to Him, know Him personally, and walk in that relationship with Him daily. He not only desires a relationship with you and me, He delights in us, too, and that, dear friend, brings such delight to me. I pray it brings delight to you, too!
My hope and prayer is that I find great delight in God's great love, and I pray that, while imperfectly, I would love others well, in a delightful way, in hopes they, too, would experience His great love and delight.
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:8, NIV)
That is our aim — let the Father’s great love for us cover our sin as we are found in Him, and let our love for others be reflective of His love for them.
Oh friend, know that God loves you more than you can fathom and delights in you more than you can feel. His love is not only real, it’s always right, and it will never be wrong to love others the way He loves us.
Great love leads to great delight.
Father, thank you for not only loving me, but for delighting in me, too. Help me show your great love and delight in a world that doesn’t always get love right. I pray your great love for me would change the way I love others. I know that I am not perfect and my love for others falls short of your love for them, but with your help, I long to love the way you love, and I pray that love leads to delight. Thank you for giving me the ability to do this with your help. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.