LOVE
THE MOST VIOLENT FORCE IN EXISTENCE
Love isn’t soft. It isn’t weak. The church has spent too long treating love like it’s fragile, like it’s some sentimental feeling that can be conjured up with the right song or the right atmosphere. But love is not an atmosphere. Love is not an emotion. Love is a Person. And that Person is Jesus, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8). Love is the most violent, unyielding force in existence because it ripped through sin and death to claim us.
We have allowed the world to define love as acceptance, tolerance, and peace. We have treated love like it’s measured by how comfortable we feel. But real love doesn’t bow to comfort, real love drives nails through wrists and hangs naked on a cross while being mocked by the very ones it’s saving. Real love suffers because it knows that resurrection comes through death. Love doesn’t protect itself, it lays itself down.
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13)
That’s not poetic. That’s bloody. That’s brutal. That’s violent. Love doesn’t whisper, it roars. It stretches itself wide and absorbs the wrath that was meant for you. Jesus didn’t just die for you, He became your sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). He took it into Himself so that you could become the righteousness of God. That’s not a sweet exchange, that’s a violent takeover. That’s love pulling you out of darkness and establishing you in the light.
We need to stop letting the world tell us what love is. God is love (1 John 4:8). And God doesn’t change. Love isn’t tolerance. Love isn’t validation. Love is truth. Love is sacrifice. Love is correction. God didn’t validate our sin, He crushed it. Jesus didn’t affirm our brokenness, He destroyed it. Love didn’t pat you on the back and tell you to try harder, it got in the grave and pulled you out.
LOVE IS NOT PASSIVE
Love doesn’t sit back and hope things work out. Love invades. It confronts. It tears down and builds up. God loved you enough to crush His own Son. Let that sink in. He didn’t accept you as you are, He rescued you from what you were. He saw you bound, blind, and drowning in sin, and He didn’t just reach down, He stepped in. He wrapped Himself in human flesh, endured every temptation, walked the road to Golgotha, and took the nails that belonged to you.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
He gave His Son. Not lent. Not offered as a possibility. He gave Him. He let the weight of every curse, every sickness, every sin, and every broken thing fall on Jesus, not so you could feel better, but so you could become whole. He didn’t just want you rescued, He wanted you restored. He didn’t want to forgive you, He wanted to make you a son. That’s why the cross wasn’t the end. Resurrection was the goal.
This is why love isn’t weak, because love refuses to leave you as you are. A love that makes you comfortable in your dysfunction isn’t love, it’s hatred disguised as compassion. Jesus didn’t come to make you comfortable, He came to make you holy. That’s why Hebrews 12:6 says, “The Lord disciplines the one he loves.” If He loves you, He will confront you. He will prune you. He will cut you so that you bear more fruit (John 15:2). That’s not rejection, that’s proof that you belong to Him.
If you don’t know the discipline of the Father, you don’t know the love of the Father.
LOVE DEMANDS EVERYTHING
Love didn’t just cost Jesus His life, it demands yours. This is why the watered down version of love being preached in the church is so dangerous. Jesus didn’t come to offer a better life. He came to kill you and raise you up as a new creation (Galatians 2:20). He came to put the old man to death so that the new man could live in Him. This is why so many people struggle to walk in love, they want the benefits of sonship without the death of the orphan spirit.
You can’t hold onto your life and claim to love Him. You can’t worship at the altar of self preservation and expect to walk in resurrection power. The life of love is a life of death. Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). That’s not a suggestion, that’s the cost of love.
Love will strip you down. It will expose you. It will call you out of your safe places and into the fire. Jesus didn’t love Peter by letting him stay comfortable, He loved Peter by walking him through his denial and restoring him on the other side. Jesus didn’t love the rich young ruler by saying, “You’re doing great,” He loved him by telling him to sell everything and follow Him.
Love will demand everything you have. And when it does, you have to decide if you really trust Him. Because love isn’t safe. Love will lead you into the wilderness. It will lead you into the storm. But the promise is this, He’s in it with you.
LOVE SECURES YOUR IDENTITY
This is where love separates itself from every other counterfeit. Love is not just a rescue mission, it’s an adoption. Jesus didn’t come just to save you, He came to give you a name. He didn’t just come to erase your sin, He came to give you His righteousness. You don’t just belong to God, you carry His DNA.
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God. (1 John 3:1)
You’re not tolerated, you’re claimed. You’re not barely making it, you’re seated with Him in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6). Jesus didn’t die so you could “try harder.” He died to make you one with Him. That’s why Romans 8 says that nothing can separate us from the love of God. You can’t outrun it. You can’t sin your way out of it. You can’t mess it up.
Because love isn’t a feeling, it’s a covenant. And covenants don’t break.
LOVE IS A PERSON
At the end of the day, love isn’t a concept, it’s a Person. Jesus is love incarnate. And if you don’t know Him, you don’t know love. The world doesn’t get to define it. Culture doesn’t get to define it. Jesus is the definition of love. The cross is the definition of love. If your version of love doesn’t lead you to the cross, it’s not love.
Stop chasing the feeling and start following the Person. Lay down your life. Lose your pride. Step into the death that produces resurrection. Because once you’ve tasted real love, once you’ve been possessed by the love that put Jesus on the cross, you won’t settle for a cheap imitation.
This is the call. This is the command. Not just to receive love, but to become it. Because you’re not just saved, you’re a son. And sons don’t just receive love, they release it.
As He is, so are we in this world. (1 John 4:17)
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