Let Me Love You

Here in Miami, I go to church at Crossbridge Miami which is a Presbyterian church near campus here in Coral Gables. Yesterday, our pastor, Felipe, talked about love in relation to God. What is love? To me, love is putting someone before yourself. Love is sacrificing your self, your time, your desires, your everything for someone else. Now there is not only one type of love. While many may believe that the word love only refers to couples who are dating, engaged, married, etc., this is not the case. In the Bible, four different types of love are mentioned: Storge, Philia, Eros, and Agape. Storge refers to the type of love one has based upon familiarity or for family members. Philia is brotherly love or friendship. Romantic love is called Eros, and lastly, Agape is unconditional love. The first three types are pretty self-explanatory and everybody experiences them in some way or another, so I will not go into depth on those. Unconditional love however, is something that, unfortunately, many people do not have the blessing of experiencing. Unconditional love is when you love someone no matter what and with no strings attached. It is like loving someone even if they do not love you back, even if they hurt you, even if they try to push you away and do not seem to deserve your love. As humans, Agape is extremely hard for us to give to others, in fact, I believe it is impossible for us without God. Not only does God love unconditionally, but He loves EVERYONE unconditionally!

When Adam & Eve acted against God and committed the first sin back in the Garden of Eden, God was hurt. He loved Adam & Eve will all of His self, yet they betrayed Him. While most of us would cast out or leave someone who betrayed or cheated on us, God did not do that to Adam & Eve. He still loved them, He still cared for them and never left them. I know that there is no way I could do that. If someone I love betrays me and keeps betraying me, I lose faith in them and my emotional hurt takes control and I start to resent them. God wants to love us, each and every one of us, yet we do not let Him. He showed His love for us when He sent His only son, Jesus, down to Earth to die on the cross for our sins so that we could have eternal life. That right there is the perfect example of unconditional love. Jesus left his spot next to God the Father up in Heaven, a place that is amazing beyond imagination to come down to Earth, a place filled with brokenness and sorrow, as a human (which by definition is not as awesome as being God...) so live a modest life of servitude to others. Not only did He serve others the whole time He was on Earth, but Jesus allowed himself to be sacrificed on the cross fulfill God's wrath that He did not deserve at all. He went through a tough life and an absolutely miserable death for the sole purpose of saving us. If that is not love, what is? What is crazy about it is, He not only died for the people that He met during His time on Earth, but also for you, me, our grandparents and our great-great-grandchildren! It is so sad that Jesus loves us so much but we push Him away and do not believe. All He wants to do is love us. He is literally pleading out to all of us, "Please! Let me love you!" Without God's love, there is no way that we can even begin to imagine loving others unconditionally. Without an example, we do not know how and we may even feel it is impossible.

This reminds me of a popular R&B song by Ne-Yo called, "Let Me Love You" (click link to view the song with lyrics). Even though the song is talking to a girl, the lyrics do have a great depth to them if you give them some attention. The song starts like this:

"As much as you blame yourself,

You can't be blamed for the way that you feel

Had no example of a love,

That was even remotely real

How can you understand

Something that you never had?"

Right here, he seems to be talking to a girl who doesn't know how to love and is telling her that he understands why. If she has never had anyone love her of even seen an example of real love, how could she possibly understand how to love someone else like that? I have had the luxury of a loving family, but even with all of their love, I do not feel that it is 100% unconditional and it is more of the Storge type of love than Agape. Once I learned about God's Agape love for me and now that I have lived, experienced, and felt it, I am just beginning to understand how to try and love others unconditionally. Even now, I cannot say that I love anyone this way. No matter how hard I try, I always fall, but that is what Jesus' grace is for. God knows that we cannot do everything that he commands due to our weakness towards the Devil and sin. But the next few lines of the song mimic what God is saying to us:

"Ooh, baby, if you let me,

I can help you out with all of that

Girl, let me love you,

And I will love you,

[...]

I know your trouble

Don't be afraid"

God is begging us to let Him love us, to open our hearts to Him and His grace. He understands that we cannot be perfect alone and that we are afraid, but He wants to be with us and comfort and teach us! All we have to do is let Him.

"A heart of numbness gets brought to life
I'll take you there"

Those two lines there also exhibit what God's love does for us. When I experienced His love, my heart changed. I already was a decently caring person, but I was always #1 on my list and #2 was a million miles below. God has helped me shorten that gap and insert Himself above me. someday I hope to be able to close the gap between myself and others and even put them before myself, but I have a long way to go, yet I know that with His love, I can get there.

I will close by mentioning Felipe's three main points from his talk yesterday in church: 

1. God is love 

2. He is a God who shows love

3.He is a God that commands love

God is loving towards everyone and everything that He has ever created, and He shows us daily and continuously, even when we do not happen to notice. My youth pastor at my church back home in Houston gave a great example of this one day: If God doesn't love us, why did He make the world beautiful, why did he make flowers smell beautiful, why did he make sounds of waves or music pleasing? He wanted us to be able to enjoy His world with the senses that He gave us. He has loved us from before we were ever created and He had planned out our future pleasure before even Adam & Eve ever stepped foot in the Garden of Eden. Lastly, He commands us to love. In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus says that the greatest commandment is: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" and the second greatest commandment is: You shall love your neighbor as yourself". Unlike what many religions of the world believe, God does not say that you have to do anything but love. You do not have to go to church, you do not have to give to charity, etc. All that you have to do is love, and that is because God loves. These last few lyrics of Ne-Yo's song help close perfectly:

"I can see the pain behind your eyes
It's been there for quite a while
I just wanna be the one to remind you what it is to smile
I would like to show you what true love can really do"

We all suffer and have pain, especially if we do not live a life following Jesus. If we let Him love us, He will give us joy and happiness and we will learn the true power of love. So go out there and love! If you give out some love, you will undoubtedly receive some back.

Love,

    Ty