Jesus didn’t call us to love others as we love ourselves, to set limits on our love, but to love without limits. Our problem isn’t we love too much, but we love to little. We love others on our terms. We love others at a distance, we restrain our love for others but desire others to love us without risk. Have you ever though how life would be if you loved others without concerning yourself with the risk? Not living a life of fear that says, ”If I love someone, what will happen to me?” If we say we love someone and we are only concerned about what will happen to us, then we need to ask ourselves, “do we really love them, or do just love the way they make us feel.” If we truly love someone without risk we tend not to concern ourselves about only ourselves. We look to the desires of those we love. When I use the words without risk, I mean to love without worry, without fear, without concerning ourselves about what will happen if I give my love to another. Think to yourself and see if there was ever a time when you gave yourself to a friend. When you didn’t look to your fears for their counsel on love? Was it a love that was rewarding instead of being laden by fear? Was it a love that was filling instead of being emptied out by the words, “what if?” Could it be that our pain from love is more about restraining ourselves because of what others have done to us? “It is not that we are all trying to please ourselves, but that we are all far too easily pleased. We do not believe Jesus when He says there is more blessedness, more joy, more lasting pleasure in a life of devoted to helping others than those in a life devoted to our material comfort.”[1]
How would our love for others be if we didn’t live in the fear of losing it? When we desire to love others, and fear doing it because we might lose it; then we already have missed it if we choose to live that way. Once we fear and restrain our giving, we have nothing to lose because we have never possessed it. Christ said it is better to give then to receive. How would our relationships be if we gave our love to others without expecting something in return? For God loves a cheerful giver.
Now let us turn our attention to our love for God. Do we do the same to Him? Do we fear giving our hearts over to Him? When it comes to human relationships we know that those fears are possible, even though it should not control us, or make our decisions for us. With God we need not fear at all. He has promised He will never leave us or forsake us. The question we need to ask ourselves is why do we still run from God? Why are we afraid to put our trust in the One who has given all for us? What will happen if we love God with as much intensity as we want others to love us? How would our lives change if we would open our hearts up to Him and allow His love to transform us? I think we would be surprised with the change in our own hearts. Maybe if we would allow Him in, we may even allow others in also, but only if we try.
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