By: John Mitchell
Unconditional Love
I would like to start with a definition of the title of this article. First, Unconditional means, something that is absolute, and not subject to any conditions or limitations. Second, there are different types of love, but for the purpose of this article I will say that, Love means, caring about someone so much, that you will put providing them with their needs and wants first, before your own needs and wants. Also, love is having a strong and deep feeling of affection for another person. There are times when a person, in obedience to the commandment of God, chooses to love another person. Sometimes the feelings of love will happen in you, for that person, and sometimes it just continues to be an act of obedience. (Matthew 22:39) “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” First Corinthians 13:4-8,13, tells us about love. “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not believe rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” After Jesus had been beaten and scourged, and His body was physically nailed to the cross, and He was left to die. He said about the people who had done all of those cruel and painful things to Him, “Then Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”(Luke 23:34) And Romans 5:8, tells us, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Also 2 Peter 3:9 tells us that God is, “…not wiling that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” God loves us and does not want any of us to perish, but as the above scripture says, “that all should come to repentance.” We can clearly see that all do not come to repentance in their lives, so even though God loves all of us, no one with unforgiven sin can enter into heaven. As Jesus showed us His unconditional love, we also, with God’s help, should show God our unconditional love for Him, and also for the others in our lives. God expects us to do in our life, what Jesus did in His life. 1 Peter 2:21 tells us, “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in His steps.” You may be thinking that you could never, from your heart, truly unconditionally love anyone. “But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 9:26) God may have already helped you to love unconditionally, but you did not realize that you were loving unconditionally. An example of this is when parents see their newly born child for the first time. It is unconditional love at first sight, even though the mother suffered through carrying their child for nine months, and then suffered the pains of child birth, when she first sees and holds her new baby, all the hardships of the past nine months are instantly forgotten. This unconditional love for our children continues for all the rest of our lives. When our children do wrong, sometimes we have to show tough love to them, to help them to do what is right. We will always love them, but we cannot accept or approve of the wrong that they are doing. Regardless, of what our children do, we never stop loving them. God never stops loving us, but there are consequences to any wrongs, or sins, that we are guilty of committing. Because God loves us, He corrects us in His way of tough love toward us, to help us to do what is right. True love is based on what you can give to another person, not on what you can get from another person. If our love is based on what we can get from the other person to please us, then it is not love. Think about that new born baby that we instantly unconditional love. Do we love the baby because we get something from the baby? No! What we have gotten from our baby in nine months is the difficulty and pain for the mother, and a very expensive doctor and hospital bill. As our baby gets older, feeding and burping, and diaper changes, and doctor visits, and medicines, and car seats, and baby beds, and baby clothes, and many sleepless nights. After all of this expense and hardship of always giving to the baby do the parents say, “This is always give, give, to our baby and we get nothing back for all that we do for him.” NO! NO! NO! The parents say, What I get from my baby, is that I get to love this beautiful, precious child, that God has blessed me with, and when I hold my baby in my arms, I know that my baby loves me back.” That is unconditional love! When the baby gets older and starts to talk, the time will come when he or she starts saying two words, NO! and MINE! In love for your child, you discipline and train. When we read God’s word, God disciplines and trains us, through His inspired words of scripture. When the child is one year old the parents give him a birthday party. He does not know to say thank you for my party. As he gets older, he will never remember that birth day party. The parents will never get any thanks or gratitude from their child for his party. The parents, unselfishly, wanted their child to be as happy as he could be on that day. Every day is devoted to the care and happiness of their child! That is unconditional love! I can go on and on with examples of how we unconditionally love our children, and how God, every day, unconditionally loves us, His creation, and His children. We are all creations of God, but sadly, we are not all children of God. There is no greater love than God sacrificing His Son, Jesus for the sins of all of mankind. My main point is, don’t try to excuse yourself from obeying God’s commandment of loving our neighbor, as we love ourselves. Many of us, who are parents, have loved unconditionally, and are still loving our children unconditionally. Many times, we don’t love our neighbor, or even a family member, because they seem to be a very unlovable person, who has a bad attitude, and is not a kind or friendly person. God’s commandment does not say, if you feel like it, or if you have good feelings about your neighbor, then love your neighbor. Our feelings should be our guide in making our daily decisions. Our guide should be the inspired word of God. We should live our lives trusting and obeying God in faith. Proverbs 3:5-7 tells us to, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your eyes; fear the Lord and depart from evil, And Hebrews 11:6 tells us, But without faith it is impossible to please Him,” And 2 Corinthians 5:7 tells us, “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” There is no plan for our lives, better than God’s plans and will for our lives. I need to learn and do what this article instructs us to do, as much as any reader of this article needs to learn from it and do.