If I Say I Love You...

If I say I love you…

I'm not saying I have great affection for you.

I'm not saying I think you are a wonderful human being.

I'm not saying I think you're attractive.

I'm not saying I think you are a perfect person.

I'm not saying I think you deserve my respect and admiration.

I'm not saying I think we are compatible in our likes and dislikes.

I'm not saying I enjoy your company.

I'm not saying I want to spend time with you.

To me…

Loving someone means wanting God for them.

If I say I love you, I'm telling you I want God for you.

I am saying I want you to know God.

Don't be offended. I may have affection for you, and think you're wonderful, attractive, deserving respect and admiration, that I like and dislike things you do, and I appreciate your company, and want to be with you, but all those things are faulty in sinful humanity. The world has warped love into something physical, into something temporal, into a conditional contract all too easily dissolvable in many large and small ways. We often hurt the ones we say we love over and over again all through our weak, sinful, devil provoked actions, when we don't want to hurt them at all. We crush them under our failings, as it crushes us to do so. We may not even know why we can't keep from hurting those we say we love, we have no real answer - it's sinful humanity.

If I say I love you, wanting you to know God, I am wanting the most important thing in the entire existence of mankind, for you.

I can love any one, and I am commanded to love all, the worst of the worst if I'm wanting God for them.

My wanting God for people is wanting them to know love, His love, love that comes from Him.

I want God for you, I love you. I want to care for you as God would want me to care for you. I love you.

You may in turn do things that hurt me, do things that aren't of God, but I will never stop wanting God for you. I love you.

I may falter, I may fail, I may stumble, crumble and fall… but my God will forgive me as I seek His forgiveness, as I repent of my sins, knowing only in Him I have hope of being loved truly, loved.

Those around me may also falter, fail, stumble, crumble and fall and I will seek to love them through it, by God's grace. I will seek to forever want God for them. I love them. I will seek their desire to find forgiveness, to choose to repent of their sins, and hope they want to know God and in knowing Him find love, His perfect love.

God's love is revealed in His moral law, the same moral law kept by His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. The law our Savior magnified, and expounded. The law God the Father and God the Son, as well as God the Holy Spirit all had a part in creating for us to comprehend their inexplicable love. The law made by them, a law they exhibit in their beings towards us. A law only able to be fulfilled by us sinful, fallen man through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit our Savior promised us, through Christ in us. A law only ever perfectly kept by one human being- God the Son.  It was as a human being He kept the law perfectly- relying upon His Father for all things, securing salvation for us. He Is love.

I want God for you.

I love you.

1Co 13:1  Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not (the love of God), I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 

1Co 13:2  And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not (the love of God), I am nothing. 

1Co 13:3  And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not (the love of God), it profiteth me nothing. 

1Co 13:4  (the love of God) suffereth long, and is kind; (the love of God) envieth not; (the love of God) vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 

1Co 13:5  Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 

1Co 13:6  Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; 

1Co 13:7  Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 

1Co 13:8  (the love of God) never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. 

1Co 13:9  For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. 

1Co 13:10  But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 

1Co 13:11  When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 

1Co 13:12  For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 

1Co 13:13  And now abideth faith, hope, (the love of God), these three; but the greatest of these is (the love of God).