How to Discover a Love That Lasts
By Drenda Keesee
Have you ever experienced heartbreak and continue to struggle to find a love that lasts?
Valentine’s Day was just a few weeks ago—the day of love. The stores were stocking their aisles with heart shaped candy, boxed chocolate assortments, and stuffed animals. Flower sales were skyrocketing.
Although this is a season when we usually celebrate the people we love, many find themselves dealing with heartbreak, loneliness, and even depression.
“A new Yahoo! survey found that between the December holidays and Valentine’s Day, people are more than twice as likely to consider breaking up than any other time of the year.”
For many, this time of year brings up mixed feelings and unanswered questions. Is there really such a thing as true love? Is there somebody out there who loves me? How do you discover a love that lasts?
Love Has a Name
Have you ever wanted a relationship to last forever?
Maybe you’ve experienced the pain and heartache of a broken relationship. If so, it can taint your view of love. Our past relationships can darken our belief of whether or not true love is possible.
Is it possible to have a love that lasts?
The reality is that love is not only possible—it is a reality. Love is a person. His name is Jesus Christ. He is 100% man and 100% God. He is not just a representation of love—He is LOVE.
What is love?
According to 1 John 4:8, God is love. Verses 9-12 (VOICE) tell us,
Because of this, the love of God is a reality among us: God sent His only Son into the world so that we could find true life through Him. This is the embodiment of true love: not that we have loved God first, but that He loved us and sent His unique Son on a special mission to become an atoning sacrifice for our sins. So, my loved ones, if God loved us so sacrificially, surely we should love one another. No one has ever seen God with human eyes; but if we love one another, God truly lives in us. Consequently, God’s love has accomplished its mission among us.
My Forever Valentine
God loves us. His love is forever; it’s eternal. He loves us so much that Jesus became the ultimate martyr. He was innocent, yet He paid the price for our wrongdoing. Jesus conquered death so that we could be His forever valentine. Those who accept His gift of forgiveness become the Bride of Christ and will spend eternity with Him.
Love wasn’t meant to be short-lived. Love wasn’t designed to be fickle.
Our society has painted love in so many colors that do not express its truth. First Corinthians 13:4-8a (ESV) best describe what love really looks like:
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
Loving Each Other
So what does this teach us about loving one another?
In John 13:34 (NIV), Jesus says, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
God commands us to love one another in the same manner that He loves us. His desire for us is that we are patient, kind, and forgiving with one another. Loving our friends doesn’t mean letting them continue down a path that is going to harm them or, worse, going down it with them. Loving those in our lives requires honesty, transparency, and trust while at the same time letting go of bitterness, fear, and jealousy.
This season, I want to encourage you to focus on God’s kind of love. We cannot give what we do not possess.
Ask God to fill you with His love. Ask Him to give you a revelation about His unending and never failing love for you. You’ll find that as you become more secure in the reality of God’s love, you’ll be able to love others well. Let’s spend time getting to know our forever Valentine and sharing His love with those around us.
~ Drenda
Are you looking for a good church? Be sure and listen on Saturday evening or catch the 3 services on Sunday for Faith Life Church!
Drenda Keesee’s contagious zeal and humorous personal experiences help make her ministry of spiritual, emotional and relational wholeness one that will bless your life and spark a new fire in your spirit.
A wife of over 30 years and a mother of five children, Drenda has ministered at churches, seminars, and conferences, and through the mediums of television and radio, for more than 20 years.
Her books, The New Vintage Family, Better Than You Think, and She Gets It are available wherever books are sold. In these heartfelt books, Drenda shares her personal journey and the life lessons that have brought her to where she is today, as well as practical answers that all people need to live a joyful life.
Drenda and her husband Gary founded Faith Life Now, a ministry designed to spread the message of freedom in the areas of finances, faith, marriage, and family. Tune in for their weekly messages here. Faith Life Now hosts conferences worldwide, and sponsors both Fixing the Money Thing, which Drenda co-hosts with her husband Gary, and Drenda.
Through their own life experiences, the Keesees have found the principles from God’s Word to be powerful and effective. At one point, Drenda was a young, suicidal feminist with no hope of ever being “good enough” for her own standards of perfection. She never wanted the “inconvenience” of a husband or children, and she was on her own path to success. But the stress of trying to achieve perfection and perform for love left her broken and used. She had success, but it was nothing compared to the pain and loneliness it had also brought.
That’s when God got a hold of her heart. It was there—at her lowest point—that she found the One who accepted and loved her, faults and all. Since that transformation, Drenda has had a passion to reach women who find themselves where she once was.
She married Gary after attending college, and there she found herself in a personal boot camp of sorts. She says, “I cried and told God, ‘I can do anything but be a wife and mother.’” She committed to learning how to do it God’s way. Through the many years of raising their children and struggling to make ends meet, Drenda learned from their mistakes. “I didn’t know how to be a wife and mother, but God saved our marriage, taught us how to parent our children for success, showed us how to have financial success, and then irony of all ironies, He called us to ministry.” It’s truly because of these life experiences that Drenda can now share so many insightful principles for people who are now going through the same struggles.
