Daily Devo - John 15:9, by Laura Shultz

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.

John 15:9

Love is WHO GOD IS. He doesn’t have to choose to love us. Hecan’t help but love us. Love is His very essence. Check out this passage from the book of 1John:

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God…For God is love. ” -1John 4:7-8

A Christian author sums it up this way, “If we think God is a person who can divide His love, then we are thinking not of God but of ourselves. God is perfectly one, the perfect unity. We have love, but God is love. His love is not an activity. It is His whole self.”

The thought that came to me as I read and meditated on this today is that while for us, we can choose to love one another or not and we can choose to love God or not, God CANNOT choose to quit loving us. He loves us when we sin so badly that we think we don’t deserve His love. He loves us when we try to run from Him. He loves us when we are “too busy” and choose to ignore Him. He loves us when we let our pride keep us from thinking that we need to rely on Him. He loves us when we completely forget to thank Him for all the incredible blessings that He so freely gives us. He loved us long before we knew Him. He loved us long before we were even born. He loved us like crazy when He sent his precious, beloved Jesus to hang upon a cross. And Jesus stayed on that cross in all of the pain, not because of a theological doctrine of atonement, but because of LOVE. Insane, amazing, wonderous, LOVE. You see, for God, love is not an ACTION but it is WHO HE IS. It is his very essence. It is His name.

So, on Valentine’s Day, I am choosing to celebrate much more than just a Hallmark holiday. I am choosing to celebrate LOVE, which means that I am choosing to celebrate God’s essence. I am making my human choice to strive to embrace the love that God so freely IS in my life, because He can’t be anything else… and that, friends, is AWESOME. I am delighting in the whispers that He so often places in my heart and that on other days I may, in my humanness, choose to ignore. But not today…

My prayer for you is that you will DANCE today knowing that our God IS LOVE!!!! And because of that, He is the ULTIMATE Valentine. Listen to His essence today, and relish His incredible, unconditional love for you…

“I have called you by name, from the very beginning. You are mine and I am yours. You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests. I have molded you from the depths of the Earth and knitted you together in your mother’s womb. I have carved you in the palms of my hand and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. Has it crossed your mind that I am proud of you? I am proud that you have freely chosen me, after I had chosen you, as your friend and Lord. I am proud that even though you may have a few warts and wrinkles, you have not given up. After all, I never expected that you would be perfect. You see, it doesn’t matter… I love you. I am with you always- no matter what you have done. You are precious to me. I will never leave you. I love you. I love you. I love you. Nothing will ever change that.”

-James Bryan Smith, Embracing the Love of God