Redeeming Love

True love is more than a feeling or a desire. True love is powerful and relentless.

July 25

I am listening to one of my favorite books, Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. It is an allegory of God’s redeeming love for us. The beginning of the story is sad and difficult to read because of all the tragedy for both this little girl, Sarah, and her mother. The story is set in the early 1800s. Sarah’s mother had fallen in love with a married man. She lives in a beautiful little cottage that he provides for her. He visits and brings beautiful gifts. She is well taken care of and seems to be loved. Until the day she wants him to meet his daughter. He knows of her existence, he just didn’t want her. He has legitimate children of his own and had no interest in this child. Sarah’s mother believes that if he just met her, he couldn’t help but fall in love with his own daughter, especially because she is such a precious little girl. That is not what happened. He was angry and left, never to return. Within a few short months, Sarah and her mother were out on the streets with nowhere to go. Because of all this heartache, Sarah’s mother determines that love is not a blessing, it’s a curse. She believes this because what she thought was love was just a counterfeit. I have seen a lot of counterfeit love in my life; women abused, children neglected, men disrespected, and in the midst of the misery, someone will say, but I love them.

It breaks my heart when people use the word love to describe something so far removed from what God means love to be. Love caused Jesus to die on a tree for you and me. He laid His life down for all who would come.

If Sarah’s dad had truly loved her mom he would not have thrown her out on the street. Even before that, he would not have had an affair with her. He would have loved and respected her enough to let her go and have the life she deserved, so she could have a husband and a family that was truly hers. He would not have done anything to destroy her reputation and her life. This was not love, it was selfish desire.

Love means laying down your life for another, putting their desires above your own. True love mutually tries to outdo the other.

When Sarah’s mom said that love was a curse she mistakenly thought that what she had was love. When we confuse the feelings of love with actual love we can get into painful situations. True love is such a blessing. True love heals. True love protects the other persons heart.

This is what 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 says love is.

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.