Today I Choose Love...

Today I choose love. To recognize and embrace how much my God loves me and to extend that love to those around me.
Love...it's a word that gets used for so many things. We can say that we love a person and that we love a drink from Starbucks all in one breath. But what does it mean to really embrace the love of God and to follow his commandment to "love each other" (John 15:17)?
The word love appears so many times in the Bible, when I started to look up verses to study about love, I was quite overwhelmed by how many there were to pick from. That shouldn't surprise me though, since Jesus replies when asked what the greatest commandment was in Matthew 22:36-39 to "Love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment." Here's the kicker, Jesus doesn't stop there, he continues on to say, "And the second is like it, Love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus takes it beyond us loving God to loving others and he's not just asking us to love, he's commanding us to love. When Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves, it should bring how much he values loving others into perspective. It's easy to love ourselves. I like a good treat and can easily convince myself that I deserve one. Even if it is a small treat like Starbucks, because after all I do "love" Starbucks. So when I am commanded to love others like I love myself, then this should be easy, right? On our own it is not easy, but I think when we truly start to grasp how much God loves us, then that love begins to pour out of our lives onto others.
1 John 3:18 tells us, "Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." It's easy to say something, but talk is cheap unless it is backed up by actions. God showed his love among us by sending His Son to die for our sins. Now that is love!
I have the blessing and honor to be a mom to Parker and Eliza. I think being a parent give us a little insight into how much God love us. I love both of my kids more than I ever thought I could and I would do anything for them. The amazing thing is that God loves me even more with an unfailing, unconditional, everlasting love. That love should change how I live, it should change how I interact with others, it should change how I love.
Some of my most favorite verses are in Ephesians 3:17b-19. "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." I don't know about you, but I want to know that love and knowing that love makes me want to love others. The thing is, we have to love without expecting anything in return. Luke 6:27-36 tells us that we must love our enemies, do good to them and lend to them without expecting anything back. "Even 'sinners' love those who love them." God's love should make me want to love others without expectations and love them not because I will be loved back, but because my God loved me first and He commands me to love. I want Psalm 18:1 to be my prayer: "I love you, O Lord, my strength". Give me the ability to remember how much you love me and to love others.
So today, I choose love.