Devotions this week based on Sunday’s Message: The Permanence of Love! (LISTEN HERE)
Is love permanent?
Around us we hear people use the phrase, “Fall in love…fall out of love.”
Relationships go south and individuals say, “We just don’t love each other anymore.”
One day you love pizza, the next you despise it.
Love seems so temporary…so fleeting.
Can you really count on love? Is love something that will last?
To make the claim that “love is permanent” probably is met with a bit of hesitation and skepticism. Even things that are called permanent aren’t always permanent. Permanent marker can be removed with the proper cleaning solution. A hair “perm” has to be redone ever 6-8 weeks.
So, what makes something permanent?
An online dictionary puts this forward as a definition of “Permanent”:
- Lasting or remaining without essential change.
- Not expected to change in status, condition, or place.
- Continuing in the same state, or without any change that destroys form or character; remaining unaltered or unremoved; abiding; durable; fixed; stable; lasting.
So does love meet these qualifications?
Human love…not so much. But God’s love?
1 John 4:8 says, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” One of the essential qualities of God is love. Not simply an emotional feeling toward people, but a self-sacrificing, willing to do all for people, type of love. To say that God’s love is fleeting or temporary opens the possibility that God doesn’t exist. If love ceases to exist, then God does as well.
But love lasts. It does not change…God’s love that is.
James 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
God doesn’t change. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. To “not change” is an essential quality of being permanent. God fits that quality.
So if God is love and God doesn’t change, then we can say of God’s love: “It is permanent.”
People throughout Scripture have recognized the permanent, enduring, eternal nature of God’s love. One of many examples is in 1 Chronicles 16:34, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.”
Forever.
That’s permanent.
Apply: Why is human love often temporary? What leads you to love at times and at other times to withdraw love?
Prayer: Lord, open my eyes to see and appreciate the enduring, permanent nature of your eternal love for me. AMEN.