Lesson 93 - "I DON'T LOVE YOU ANYMORE!"
"Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ" I Corinthians 11:1
The St. Paul School, with Frank Eiklor, Eileen Young and Walter and Cecilia Contreras)
"I DON'T LOVE YOU ANYMORE!"
Oh the pain those words have caused.
"I don't love you anymore!"
Perhaps you have heard them hurled at you. Maybe more than once. A foolish child wanting to hurt a parent. Or, a more foolish parent saying those words to a child. Or a spouse, angry at his/her mate, wanting to inflict a heavy wound.
Sometimes "I don't love you anymore" is spoken in a moment of pain or resentment and regret, and apologies are made and accepted. Other times those words are final. The runaway child. The abusive or selfish parent who abandons a child. The broken engagement. The divorce that destroys a marriage. Or a thousand other heart-breaking situations.
Yet out of that hellish darkness of people crushing people comes a light that can never be put out. And from that light comes a voice. It's the voice of your heavenly Father and He has something to say. "I have loved you with an everlasting love" (Jeremiah 31:3). "You will never hear from me that 'I don't love you anymore'".
No matter what pain or rejection you have suffered - or may yet have to endure - know one thing: the One who matters most loves you most. Loves you when you sin and wants you to repent. Loves you when you doubt, forget, deny or even hate Him. Loves you when you feel abandoned, betrayed and alone. Loves you when you are so tired you want to give up.
Nothing can keep Him from loving you. He demonstrated that from a Cross where it looked like love had died but then rose again. God doesn't just love. He is love - and you're the focus of all that "everlasting love". Believe it! It's true! Welcome it! It's for you!