What Is True Love?Sample

Our Sole Desire Is True Love.

If our sole desire is to love Christ fully, we must cling to His side and follow Him fully. To follow Him fully, we must pick up our cross and lose our life to live His. We must die to self, to our ways, our wants, our exaltation. It is in this death, the death of self-love, that the love of Christ comes to life in us. We must look to Him--to no one else, to nothing else--for peace, acceptance, approval, direction, and worth. We must find all of our joy in Him. He must be our great reward. We must rest fully upon the benefit we have hoped for in Him. We must rest in the Lord and not in our own righteousness. We are to put no confidence in self. In fact if we leave self behind that is when we will more fully encounter Christ.

Leaving self is no small feat, however. It means that we must leave behind our own ways, insights, wants, will, fears, insecurities, problems, concerns, must-haves, etc. The more we leave the comforts and ways of this world, the more closely we will be able to cleave to the comforts and ways of Christ. The more we rejoice in Christ, the more willing we will be to serve Him and suffer for Him, and the less danger we will be in of being drawn away from him. The joy of the Lord is our strength.

If we seek to be filled with Him and His love, we must walk with our hearts knit to His throughout the day, no matter how severe the storm or how great the distraction or how strong the temptation that comes our way.

Tomorrow we will see what this looks like practically, day to day.

Taking the Truth to Heart: Choose a Scripture to take to heart to renew your mind and transform your heart.

Putting Self to Death: What specific sin is being addressed in your life by the Scripture you wrote? Paul tells us very specifically to put off the old self.

Bringing the Truth to Life: Put on the new self--Christ. What very specific adjustments do you need to make in your thinking or attitude or behavior to submit to Him and apply His truth to your mind and heart?