Growing in LoveSample

A Growing Love Requires Soul Alignment

To love well, we need sincere, pure motivations. Therefore, a growing love needs a healthy self-awareness.  

Is your love sincere—meaning without hypocrisy or pretense? How can you know? Take intentional time for soul alignment. Let me explain. 

 Occasionally I need to go to the chiropractor for an adjustment of my spine. Inevitably, Dr. Lisa always discovers something that has shifted out of alignment—so then she snaps, crackles, and pops it back into place. These corrections benefit my physical body in a variety of ways. 

In day one of this Bible Plan, we realized we absolutely need God’s help when it comes to fully loving Him and others. And one of the benefits of daily looking to and relying on God is that He will often reveal something specific that needs correction—or a soul alignment. 

Sometimes, God shows me that I am parenting out of fear-based emotions instead of genuine love, and I need to surrender this to Him. Sometimes, I’ve become offended, and the Holy Spirit shows me where there is pride to repent of and forgiveness to give. Many times, I have simply relied on myself and stubbornly sought to bring my solutions to a situation in my effort to lovingly help. 

I could go on, but what I hope you understand is that we cannot genuinely love others until we open ourselves up to correction and humbly lay ourselves down before the Holy Physician. 

I can’t love from fear, offense, self-centeredness, or stubbornness. And neither can you. Let that sink in.

The problem is that a lot of what you and I do may even have the appearance of righteousness. We’re really good at being self-serving, self-righteous, and self-justifying. But love goes much deeper than what meets the eye. 

A good thing isn’t always the loving thing. When it comes to genuine love, motives matter most. 

That’s why we need to go to God with softened, humble hearts to keep out any self-deception. Just like going to the chiropractor, spending intentional time with God in prayer will bring the self-awareness our souls need.

So today, spend some time asking yourself: What have I been doing that appears to be the right thing, but lacks the right motives? 

Pray: Ask God to show you if there are false motives you need to lay down in order to love with total sincerity.