STOP! In the Name of Love ♥

Oh Lord. I don’t know where to start with this one. In size, this subject is about as wide and deep as the universe itself….and I don’t have a CLUE where I’m going with it. Love and relationship. It’s inevitable. We are relational beings. We were created to be in relationship with people. We were created to love. I’m going to be quite frank. At times I look around at people and the way they act in relationships (unmarried), the way married couples treat each other, and the way single people seem SO desperate to be in a relationship, and frankly….it makes me nauseous.  I know what you are thinking, “Kerrie, who do YOU think you are??! You are single, never been married, you’ve been in relationships that haven’t lasted, and you’re not even in a relationship now….you’re just jealous!”. No, that isn’t it at all. It saddens me. Trust me, it’s a strong desire of my heart, but I just don’t take love lightly. People have gotten SO far away from LOVE. The REAL meaning of love has gotten so twisted, distorted, and perverted that the majority of people mistake LUST, for love. They mistake the “newness” of a new relationship, for love. They get so caught up in the desperation of “having” to have someone and the FEAR of being alone that they run through men/women like nobody’s business. What is sad is when REAL love crosses someone’s path in this day and age, when REAL love looks a man or woman in the face TODAY….it looks fake. People automatically assume that person is putting on a show and that it won’t last forever (ok, so…get out of Egypt alreadyJ). You know why??  Because REAL love LOOKS to be too good to be true, but in Truth, it really IS….that good.

I am finding more and more that if we want to know how much love is willing to give, how far love is willing to go, how expensive love is….we must study the cross.  The Cross glorified God, and that is exactly what our relationship/marriage should do. Our relationships should always point us back to God. From a single perspective, if you are a Christ follower, you HAVE to have someone who is going in the SAME direction you are spiritually. Because I can guarantee (from experience) if you are not equally yoked, you will end up going in the direction they are instead of the direction God had intended for you to go. “Being” in a relationship is NOT worth getting out of the will of God for your life. Even more importantly, if you are a Christ follower, you should KNOW the meaning of “love”. You should know it isn’t just a “word” to be thrown around in the heat of the moment. You should know “love” isn’t just an emotion. You should know “love” isn’t just a 4-letter word.

I looked up the definition of the word “love”, and as expected I wasn’t satisfied with what I read. The closest word I found to even coming close was the word “infallible” meaning “incapable of error”, and that still to me is a watered down definition.  Just like the world and even many professing Christians have done, we have cheapened THE most POWERFUL WORD in all of creation. LOVE. The definition of LOVE is given to us in 1 John 4…..

God IS love.

We are to love like God loves (read all of 1 John 4). He IS the definition of love. How well do you love? How well do you love your husband? How well do you love your wife? How well do you love your children? How well do you love yourself? How well do you love your family? How well do you love your friends? How well do you love strangers? How well do you love people of another color? How well do you love the unlovable? How well do you love the righteous in Christ? How well do you love the unrighteous?  How well are you loving according to God’s standard of love?

GET THIS!!! Do you SEE WHY satan is attacking so many marriages, so many families, so many relationships?!?! Because even satan knows how POWERFUL love is….because God IS love. And he’s doing everything he can to get US to destroy it. And we are doing a pretty dang good job. The only thing we LOVE anymore….is ourselves. All we think about is OUR pleasure, OUR fulfillment, OUR satisfaction, OUR needs being met…the world is all about me, myself, and I.  The family (LOVE) was designed specifically BY GOD to represent HIS kingdom (here ON EARTH). And satan is trying to destroy it. Satan knows that wherever the kingdom is established, his power HAS TO come to an END. But instead of LOVING like we are instructed and called to love, we are in essence willingly pouring gasoline all over ourselves, lighting the match, and setting ourselves on fire. And then we sit and wonder what in the heck just happened.

I’m single, yes. Did I ever believe I would be 38 years old and never married? No. I usually have one of four reactions when people discover this. One, they instantly feel “sorry” for me (because THEY FEAR being alone. I’m never alone. God is always with me…and, He’s a husband to the husband less..so, in reality..my husband is better than yours. Ha!).  Two, they automatically think there is something “wrong” with me (I must have a ton of baggage or some secret spooky wooky quirky hidden deep dark secret that will eventually be revealed because….really, I am too good to be true. Lol)  Thirdly, OHHH…they know the “perfect person” for me J  Well, I assure them…I don’t know the perfect person for me, so I really doubt they do J  Most of the time I just ask a few questions about this “perfect person”….and 95% of the time (and that’s being generous. Lol)….I can tell by asking just a few questions if this perfect person and I are on the same page spiritually. I can tell in those few questions if God would be glorified by us getting together.  This is why I don’t date much. There are times when you can be on the same page spiritually and headed in the same direction, but for whatever reason you just don’t click. I am SO much different than a lot of people I know when it comes to dating. I don’t like to date just to date different people (or for a FREE meal  lol). I have friends who do and love it, and seem to have a good time doing it. I have even been criticized by other Christians for it claiming that I am not “living my life”.  I don’t see it that way. I see dating a bunch of different people who I know by asking a few questions that I have no business being with as a “waste of my life”.  Preferring to spend my Friday and/or Saturday night(s) alone with Jesus, definitely isn’t from my perspective a wasted life.

Let’s be real here. WHY do people date??? I mean SERIOUSLY?? Be real! Men (Christian and non-Christian)….FYI….if you have commitment issues, if you haven’t grown out of your player mentality, if you are there only to attempt to, pardon me….hit it and quit it (we are being REAL remember), if you “just don’t know what you want”….for the love of God….DON’T DATE!   I know that may sound harsh, totally unrealistic, and irrational to you. BUT…no matter what A WOMAN TELLS YOU…..she is on that date looking for her future husband. That FIRST DATE is exactly where you start messing with her heart, wooing her with everything she wants to hear because you know from experience what “can” happen when you tell a woman what she wants to hear. Women don’t date just to date like men do!  They are LOOKING FOR A HUSBAND. Honestly, I truly believe in my heart that there a TON of people who NEED to be single for an extended period of time. When we hop from relationship to relationship….we just keep taking that same ole’ stinkin’ garbage along with us every where we go and….garbage STINKS!  Get by yourself! Get alone with God! Ask Him to help STRIP YOU of all of the issues of the past that you keep packing around with you. The unforgiveness you are holding onto because somebody in the past wronged you will keep you from committing out of fear, will keep you from loving well, and can hinder your ability to receive the love that YOUR heart desires…and…

When we look at the cross, not only do we see the definition of Love, but we see commitment. God can only give love that lasts forever. We are to love like that. We aren’t supposed to play with people just to get what we want out of them. The cross is the foundation of so many things. It’s the foundation of what we are to build our life on top of (Christ crucified). It’s the foundation of Love (the most sacrificial kind). It’s the foundation of TRUE commitment. It’s the foundation of marriage (a lasting covenant with God). It’s the foundation of Honor. It’s the foundation of Respect. It’s the foundation of Admiration. It’s the foundation of Submission. It’s the foundation of Honesty. It’s the foundation of Purity.

You see, when I think about marriage for myself, I think of the cross. I know my marriage is to be such that it points to God. I know through my marriage God should be glorified to the world. In order to do that, my potential husband has to have the characteristics of my Father. If I look into his life and don’t see the cross, I won’t date him. Not even for a free meal J  Instead, I’ll spend my time at home alone preparing to be the wife God wants me to be. Because if I know God at all, I know that if I’m looking for my Father in a husband, my future husband will be looking for the Bride of Christ in me.

Relationship 101 according to the word of God (Ephesians 5:22-28)…

“WIVES, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”

“HUSBANDS, LOVE your wives, JUST AS CHRIST LOVED THE CHURCH and GAVE HIMSELF UP FOR her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands ought to LOVE their wives as their OWN bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.”

Women, when you learn to look at your husband through the same eyes you look at the cross with, the words “submit to” that you so often resent (and misinterpret) will be (without force) replaced in your hearts with the word “LOVE”. You will see that a husband is not just ANY man. You will see him for the gift that he is. You will find that it is an HONOR to submit to such a man, as it is to submit to the Lord.

Men, when you learn to LOVE in the same way that Christ loved the church (a love that can ONLY be obtained through the cross), you will be the most loved, adored, admired, respected, cherished, and blessed man on the planet….by your wife.

Love blows my mind because it totally contradicts itself. Love can feel SO good, yet it can hurt SO bad. Song of Songs says “for love is as strong as death”. I am of the opinion that we are in a time where we feel the sting of love much more than we feel the joy in love because we are careless with it. We don’t take it seriously and we don’t think love through (to the cross) before we act upon it, and that only leads to pain. STOP settling…and in the Name of Love….go for the gold ♥

….”Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires” ♥