We enter this world in search of love. We may seek it for years, attempting to find that which completes us or makes us feel whole. Of course, true love is hard to find in such a fallen world, and often the things we gravitate to bring us to shame. For some, the search may lead to drugs. For others, it may lead to alcohol. For the majority, it leads to people.
People often look to other people to fill a void as we journey through this world. The parents, siblings, and friends that we see daily as we grow become our support system. Our wants and needs are met by people. When a baby cries, for example, it is usually mother who attends to him. When one feels sad or lonely, a friend or a sibling is often there to bring comfort. We do need one another. Unfortunately, however, as we seek true love, some people may provide the wrong kind of help and introduce us to the very things that are detrimental to our lives and souls.
The answer to the universal search for true love that we all have is Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. It is so much better to look to Christ than to people, because only He can supply the true love that we seek. What Jesus has to offer us is far better than what people can give us. Jesus is the one Person that we can truly depend on to love us without conditions. We know this to be true because He willingly died for our souls.
Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
– John 10:17–18 (KJV)
Jesus’s intent is not to use us as many of the people that we meet. The Bible tells us:
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
– John 15:13 (KJV)
The only thing Christ desires from us is our hearts. He wants us to love Him with all our heart and soul and keep His commandments, which are not grievous.
If ye love me, keep my commandments.
– John 14:15 (KJV)
Often men may think that the commandments of Christ are grievous, but that’s because the carnal mind is at enmity against God and does not want to be subject to the Law of God.
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
– Romans 8:7 (KJV)
People may think that they cannot please God because it’s “too hard,” but that is the way the carnal mind—also known as the flesh—thinks. The flesh knows that because of Adam’s original sin, our souls are sentenced to death. But if we lean on the true love of Christ, we do not have to live in or listen to the voice of the flesh. We can live in the Spirit and have life if we put our faith in Christ Jesus.
And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
– Romans 8:10 (KJV)
We don’t have to give in to sin and live a life of bondage. In Jesus, we can be set free. We have love and everything that we need pertaining to life and godliness in Jesus.
According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.
– 2 Peter 1:3 (KJV)
This means whatever we will need in life—both naturally and spiritually—we can find in Christ. If God who did not withhold His Son from us, will He not freely give us all things?
He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
– Romans 8:32 (KJV)
Real love and fulfillment are the most important things we can experience in life, and we don’t have to look to people or the things of this world to obtain them. Christ is the love that we need. All we must do is look to Him and accept Him and His love for us.
Prayer
Father, I’ve spent so many years of my life looking for love in all the wrong places. Open my understanding to see Your love for me. I believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and accept Him as my Lord and Savior. Forgive me of my sins and lead me to a life surrendered to Your love. Remove from my heart the desire to seek love outside of You. In the name of Jesus Christ I pray, Amen.