Falling in love is easy … the hard part is staying in love. It’s easier to start a friendship than it is to keep a friendship. It’s easier to get married than it is to stay married. It’s easier to start a family than it is to keep a family together. There are more than 1500 matchmaking organizations in the USA grossing more than a billion dollars a year. There are untold numbers of doctors and therapists grossing billions of dollars every year dealing with the complications of broken relationships. There’s no problem with people falling in love. The problem is staying in love.

Love can be extremely complicated. We’ve all been hurt by someone we love and we’ve also hurt someone that we love. The end result is a lot of hurt people and you know how the saying goes, “hurt people hurt people”. When we feel hurt especially because of love, we usually end up hurting other people and most of the time those closest to us. In the name of love people steal, kill and even commit suicide. Love is a strong and powerful emotion that has the power to lift us up and throw us down.

They way most people love and whom they love usually depends on the following two factors, behavior and feelings. Behavior says, treat me right and I’ll treat you right, respect me and I’ll respect you, love me and I’ll love you. Feelings are a little bit more complicated, because our feelings are constantly changing. One day I feel that I love a person and another day the feeling is gone. What we do know is that love is complicated.

When Jesus walked on the earth there were hundreds of disciples who followed him, but the closest ones to him were known as the twelve apostles. For three years they walked and lived with Jesus and they grew closer and closer to each other. Towards the end, Jesus begins to tell them that he’s going to be put to death and that one of the disciples whom Jesus singles out as Judas was going to betray him. But before Judas was able to betray Jesus, Jesus looked at the eleven remaining disciples and said to them:

John 13:34 NIV
So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.

Jesus looks at the eleven remaining disciples who had given up everything to follow Jesus and tells them, I want to give you a new command; this is different from the way you have done it before. I want to un-complicate your lives. Love each other, but not the way you’re used to loving, not based upon behaviors and feelings. I want you to love each other the way I have loved you, unconditionally and in spite of your feelings. I want you to love others not the way they have loved you but rather in the manner in which I have loved you. Yes, I even want you to love Judas who is on his way to betray me.

Its simple, love is not what you feel, love is what you decide to do in spite of how you feel.

Heavenly Father, thank you that you decided to love me unconditionally and forever. Thanks, for your love is not based on who I am but who you are, a God who is love, full of grace and truth. Help me to love as you have taught me. My love is not based on how they treat me. It is based on the love I receive from you.