Am I in love?

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Who doesn’t love that feeling of having a crush? More importantly, who doesn’t love that feeling knowing someone likes you? As soon as you catch feelings for someone, it seems like everything changes. As I sit here and watch the finale of the Bachelorette (and I’m not afraid to admit it), I can’t help but think of all of those feelings associated with being in love (or even the ones that we get when we first have a crush). As I navigate my own singleness, I can’t help but to think about that “mushy” love stuff. So with that being said, here are some signs that you might be in love (or at least some signs I look for in my own journey):

1.               You try to get to know more about that person.

2.               You get excited when that person texts/ or calls.

3.               You talk about him/ her a lot more.

4.               You never get tired of talking to him/ her.

5.               You make excuses to spend time with him/ her.

I spent some time discussing these signals with my youth group teens. No, I wasn’t trying to help them find their true love at the age of sixteen nor was I advocating dating in high school after all. Rather, God had really convicted me of how much time I was investing in others instead of Him. I knew that I wasn’t the only one who was spending more time seeking a boyfriend more than I was seeking out the Love of my Soul, and I wanted to challenge my teens with the same ideas. After all, these feelings of liking someone are something they could relate to. We have this natural desire to want to be around the person we like- to talk to them constantly, hang out as much as possible, and get to know every nuance of them. And we want to them to feel the same way. However, we claim to love Jesus and yet we don’t put the same effort into having a relationship with Him. Use these questions to really challenge yourself:

Do you try to get to know more about Him?

Do you get excited when He tries to talk to you?

Do you talk about Him to your friend or family?

Do you get tired of spending time reading your Bible or praying?

Do you make time to spend with Him?

These questions really lay heavy on my heart. I was spending more and more time with a guy without spending more and more time with Jesus. I was trying so hard to develop a relationship with my crush without trying to invest more time with my Savior. And, yet, Jesus was anxiously awaiting for me to pursue Him more. After all, if we are looking for an example of love, Jesus is it. Jesus loves you:

He knows everything about you.

He gets excited when you pray or spend time with Him.

He talks about you all of the time.

He never grows tired of you.

He loves you so much He died to spend time with you.

So when you look at your relationship with Christ, is it love or is it just a crush? Before I fall in love with any man, I need to make sure that I fall in love with Jesus first.

The world takes us to a silver screen on which flickering images of passion and romance play, and as we watch, the world says, “This is love.” God takes us to the foot of a tree on which a naked and bloodied man hangs and says, “This is love.”