The Great Love Your Heart Seeks
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:18-19
“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13
Y’all know the story: Boy meets girl, they go through crazy misadventures that drag them apart, boy chases after girl, girl takes boy back, they live happily ever after. Sounds familiar right?
Thus goes the story of pretty much every chick flick known to man, and I eat it up. From the time we’re little girls, we learn of the prince who rescues the princess, and there begins the flame in our hearts; the desire to be worth the pursuit. We swoon over love stories and dream fanciful dreams that it may someday happen to us, all the while never realizing that it already has.
Don’t you know that the gospel is the greatest love story of all time, the one our hearts are crafted to long for? Out of all the relationships God could have used to show his people his feelings towards them, He chose that of a groom to his bride, the most intimate, heart-fluttering union of them all.
Despite our insistence on loving others more than him, God pursues us in the most sacrificial chase of history – ¬all the way down to earth and eventually to the cross, all because of His great and perfect love. Though He died for all of mankind, He would have done the same if it was just your life on the line. That’s how much you’re worth to Him.
Though our human relationships are often full of doubt and worry, 1 John says that perfect love casts out fear. Your status in God’s eyes is unchanging, for He has secured our relationship to Himself, vowing Himself to us for eternity. Though we all walk away from our bridegroom countless times (a day!) He never stops wooing us, through sunsets and scripture, and tender little tugs at our hearts. Every time He brings us back, enfolding us in His arms yet again no matter the cost. There’s hope and rest, comfort and security in His embrace.
You know those vows that make you cry at weddings? (Okay, maybe they just make me cry). Well, they touch us so deeply because they speak what our hearts so desperately need to hear.
We wonder have I messed up one too many times? Am I worthy? What happens when life gets hard? Am I still okay? To Christians, God recites those marriage vows every day, promising His people perfect love for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. Our hearts long for romance, but what they truly seek is the greatest love, the love that pursues you no matter how far you run and will not let you go – the love of Jesus.
The sweet hymn “Satisfied” puts it this way:
“All my life long I had panted for a drink from some cool spring, That I hoped would quench the burning of the thirst I felt within. Hallelujah! He has found me, the One my soul so long has craved! Jesus satisfies all my longings, through his blood I now am saved.”
He is your prince, the lover of your soul, who promises Himself to you daily.