Running From Love

“Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” (Jude 1:21 AV)

What a great verse.  But have you ever asked yourself what it means to keep yourself in the love of God?  What we are to seek is mercy. This we are to do unto eternal life.  The manifestation of the love of God spoken of here is mercy.  The word for ‘keep’ means to guard against the loss of something.  In other words, Jude is saying we should take pains to guard against the loss of the love of God.  This may seem a bit contradictory to what we believe the bible says when we consider other passages of scripture.  For example, “The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, [saying], Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” (Jer 31:3 AV)  If we take into consideration other verses comparable to the one just mentioned, how is it that we have to keep ourselves in the love of God?  Doesn’t God love us with an eternal love?  The answer is standing versus experience.  Our standing in Christ is that we are loved unconditionally.  There is nothing we can or will do that will ever change that.  However, how we choose to use our lives; either for or against the glory of God; does determine how we experience that love.

I love my children more than I love life itself.  Outside of my wife, they are the world to me.  But that didn’t mean I was always compassionate with them.  There were times I needed to correct them.  There were times I would rather have been somewhere else than in their company.  There were times when they embarrassed me.  There were times I was furious.  The thing is, it didn’t matter what they were doing; whether the perfect son or the not-so-perfect son; my feelings for them never changed.  I still loved them.  The key was to remain in that love no matter how it was manifested.  There was something I did that my sons never did.  I ran away from home.  It didn’t last long.  It lasted from about ten in the morning until about seven at night.  I got really hungry and had no money.  I have relayed the experience in other posts, but to say the least, I had broken something valuable and my father would have been furious.  So, out of fear of his anger, I left.  I didn’t want to face my father and the punishment that would ensue.  At that moment, I did not keep myself in my father’s love.

As a child of God, God never ceases to love us.  He loves us with an everlasting love.  His love is manifested in various ways.  But it is always unconditional.  There are different types of people in the world.  We process love a bit differently.  Some come from well-balanced families and all they know of love is affirmation and acceptance.  What the LORD corrects them, they wilt under the heavy hand of God.  They would rather flee from God and seek their affirmation elsewhere.  Others grew up in abusive homes.  All they know of love is the absence of affirmation.  They process love as harsh and demanding.  They walk in disobedience because the only thing they know of love is correction.  They flee from affirmation and are often self-destructive.  The rest are somewhere in between.  As a child of God, we must accept all of the ways in which God manifests His love to us.  Not just those of which we are experientially familiar or are most comfortable with.  In the above verse, keeping ourselves in the love of God is to obey Him, and when we do not, to seek and accept His mercy.  This truth is often a life-long one to learn.  It doesn’t come easy.  What it requires is faith.  We must accept and keep ourselves in the love of God even when the love of God isn’t something we are familiar with.  Even if it scares us, we must keep ourselves in the love of God.  Even if it is new, we still must keep ourselves in the love of God.  Faith is what is required.