Three Kinds of Love

Let's talk about three kinds of love: God's love, the devil's "love," and our own love. The first is completely unique. It cannot fail and will perform to meet the needs of people without living in lust, bondage, or introspection. God's love has been given to man so that he might be free to express the nature of God. God's love is not what we do to prove who we are, but rather it is what we possess because of who God says we are. Have you ever tried to love someone without understanding that you are love because of who Christ has made you to be? In Him, we are love. Love is never what we do, but it is knowing we are as He is in this present evil world. He is our peace as well as our all in all.

The second kind of love is the devil's love, which is an animal, natural love. The third kind of love comes from the goodness of my own soul, which initiates and absorbs love and will establish its recipient into a pattern of response. It expects response in a particular way; and if it doesn't get it, it feels uncomfortable. It says, "Love me according to my needs as I very definitely possess you with my own concept of love." As the years pass by, it becomes more and more possessive because the variability of the receiver's response has been "chartered and mapped" to confine him into this understanding of his pattern. This kind of love says, "I now have a great capacity to possess you as I live in the soul-life of love. It is my own."

Thank God for His love that makes us what we are!