Today is Valentine’s Day, 2025. A friend posted the following verses on Facebook, and I thought they were so appropriate for the burden on my heart on Valentine’s Day this year.
That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. – Ephesians 3:17-19
I want to be filled with all the fulness of God and receive the full benefit of God’s love for me! I want the people I love to have this fulness of God too!
A few years ago, I did a personal Bible study on I John 4. I remember when it finally clicked in my brain that every time I read the phrase “love one another” in this passage, I was reading it as “love others.” Loving others is good and right. But when it comes to Godly love among brothers and sisters in Christ, it is God’s will for us to love one another, and we are told this in the Bible over and over. Galatians 5:13 says, “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.”
When defining “love one another” we can look up the Hebrew words and see that this is talking about a mutual love. It is shared, given but also received. This love is shared by Christians who have the fruit of the Spirit and the unity of the Spirit. But what about your part?
Do you love God? You may say, yes, of course! But do you let God love you? Do you receive it and accept it? For Christians to “by love serve on another,” someone has to receive! Many of us have fallen into false substitutes for God’s love for us, trying to fill the void of our need for love. It’s a prevalent problem among Christians today. We are so carnal. And we are so deficient in true love!
The need we have for love and the drive to fill that void has led many Christians to be snared and bound by sin at a young age. I believe that Satan tries to snare people as young as possible and as intimately as possible. As “intimately as possible” often means some type of sexual sin. No doubt you have experienced this in some form in your life. You may have been an innocent child when involved in sin at a young age, but the enemy’s elaborate scheme to snare you was not. Especially if there was a lasting besetting sin as a result. These snares can be as “innocent” as siblings experimenting with sexual things, pornography, and other private sexual sins. And these sins are sometimes generational sins, meaning they were introduced to your family by a generation before you. Generational sins are mentioned in Exodus 20 and 34, Numbers 14, and Deuteronomy 5.
All this to say, are you ready to let God love you? His love leads us to forgiveness, cleansing, healing, and opportunities to minister to others that have fallen prey to Satan’s devices. When I began to understand that loving one another meant giving love and receiving love, I started going to church with a spirit of willingness to accept clean godly love from my church family. I was tired of Satan’s snares twisting my thinking causing me to be on constant guard against false love. Instead, I told God that I was willing to accept love and allow others to love me according to His will. I soon adjusted my weekly prayer to asking Him to allow me to be a vessel of God’s love for others. And when the Lord led someone to do something for me, I made a point to accept it and view it as Godly love. As you yield yourself as a vessel for His love, God brings opportunities, and being used as a vessel of love is so fulfilling! But there are times God wants you to receive also.
Some of those times for me were when a lady in the church wanted to take me shopping and buy me some things. I accepted, without guilt, and enjoyed it! And I felt loved. When God brought two more people into our household, a couple in the church decided to help feed them. This couple would regularly slip me money to help buy groceries, and that grocery bill for 6 boys at that time was quite large, as you can imagine. When I fell into a deep depression that gradually became darker and darker, there came a time that I consciously chose to focus on the most foundational truth of God’s Word, Jesus loves me. I did not feel it, I did not understand it or feel joyous about it, but I knew it was true. And I accepted it. I decided to stand on that truth regardless of how I felt. And I believe that was the first step out of the pit I was in. There were tests and remedies I used, but since we are a trinity made in God’s image, a body, soul and spirit, I can testify that Jesus is the ultimate remedy for all! And His love for us is where that begins! So, most importantly of all the aspects of living the Christian life, will you accept God’s love for you? Will you let Him love you? Are you trying to earn His love? You don’t have to!
And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. – Ephesians 3:19
This hit home more than I expected. I was always awkward and fumbling at receiving love from others. I never felt worthy of anything that others did for me. Yet, I loved loving others, the joy it brought me with some simple, random act of love and kindness that made a difference in their day, their life, their struggles. These words you wrote will help me let God and others love me. God bless you.