Agape Love

Dear Friend,

Lately, the word love and relationship has been coming up over and over again in my life. At first, I thought it was simply because my husband and I are about to celebrate two years of marriage this Sunday. Naturally, anniversaries make you reflect on love, commitment, and everything you have built together.

But as I sat with the Lord over the past few weeks, I began to realize that He was highlighting something deeper to my heart. The Lord gently reminded me that love does not begin in a marriage, a friendship, or a romantic relationship. Love first begins with Him. Before we ever loved someone else, before we ever desired companionship, before we ever longed for someone to hold us and say “I love you,” we were already loved.

Scripture tells us in 1 John 4:19, “We love because He first loved us.”

That means love does not originate from human relationships. It originates from God Himself. And sometimes, without realizing it, we begin to place relationships in the position that only God was meant to occupy. We begin to believe that if we just had the right partner, the right marriage, the right relationship, then we would finally feel whole. We begin to expect from people what only God can truly give us: security, identity, affirmation, and unconditional love.

When that happens, relationships slowly become idols in our hearts. An idol is not always something obvious or sinful. Sometimes an idol is simply something we expect to fulfill us more than God.

We look to our partner to heal wounds only God can heal.
We look to their words to validate us.
We look to their presence to make us feel complete.

But the truth is, no human being was ever created to carry that weight. Only God can love us in the way our souls truly need. And when we understand this, something beautiful begins to happen. We begin to realize that our first relationship is not with a spouse,  it is with God.

Before Eve was ever brought to Adam, Adam had a relationship with God. Before any human relationship existed, there was divine relationship. This shows us something powerful: our identity and our worth were never meant to come from another person. They come from the One who created us.

Genesis tells us that we were created in the image of God. We are His workmanship. His masterpiece. His creation. Psalm 139 says that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. When we truly understand that we were created intentionally by God, we begin to see ourselves differently. And this leads to something many people struggle with: learning how to love ourselves in the right way.

Not a selfish love.
Not an ego-driven love.
Not the kind of love that says, “Everything revolves around me.”

But a holy kind of love. A love that honors the creation God made. To love ourselves in a healthy way means we recognize that we belong to God. It means we respect our hearts, our bodies, our minds, and our spirits because they were created by Him.

When we learn to love the way God loves us, we begin to treat ourselves with care, grace, and dignity. And when we receive that love from God first, something shifts in the way we approach relationships. We stop looking for someone to complete us. Instead, we become two whole people walking together with Christ at the center. The love we then bring into a marriage or relationship is no longer desperate or demanding. It becomes overflowing.

This is the kind of love Jesus demonstrated, Agape love. Agape love is not based on emotions. It is not conditional. It is not dependent on someone behaving perfectly. Agape love is self-giving, sacrificial, patient, and faithful. It is the love Christ showed when He laid down His life for us. And when we receive that kind of love from God, it transforms the way we love our husbands, our wives, our families, and the people around us.

Instead of loving from a place of lack, we begin loving from a place of abundance. Instead of asking, “Will you make me feel loved?” We begin asking, “How can I reflect the love of Christ in this relationship?”

Healthy relationships in Christ are not built on need. They are built on shared surrender to God. Two people learning daily how to love the way Christ loves. And the truth is, many of us have struggled with love at some point in our lives.

Maybe we have longed to feel chosen.
Maybe we have longed to feel cared for.
Maybe we have desired someone who would hold us, reassure us, and remind us every day that we matter.

Those desires are deeply human. But the deepest truth is this: The love our hearts are searching for has always been found in Christ.

Before anyone ever told you that you were beautiful…
Before anyone ever chose you…
Before anyone ever loved you…

Jesus did.

And when we allow His love to become our foundation, every other relationship in our lives begins to align in a healthier way. Because we are no longer loving from emptiness. We are loving from the fullness of God's love within us. And that kind of love is the kind that truly sustains a marriage, a friendship, and a life.