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“When we learn to read the Story of Jesus and see it as the Story of the love of God, doing for us what we could not do for ourselves – that insight produces, again and again, a sense of astonished gratitude which is the heart of authentic Christian experience.”
~ N. T. Wright
“Loving thoughts never revealed are not loving thoughts at all. It is essential to the being of love that it manifests itself. Love unrevealed is love unreal.” ~ Dr. A. B. Bruce.
When we look at this broken world with all its pain and suffering, when we are experiencing that pain and suffering ourselves, it’s tempting to sometimes doubt the love of God. Where is God when I lose my job? Where is the love of God when my child dies? How can God love me when my parents abuse me? It doesn’t feel like God loves me when my own husband is divorcing me. How can God love me when I am so full of sin? I’m dying of cancer and sometimes the love of God just feels like a meaningless song or an empty Bible verse.
That’s why God gave us his Son. Jesus came to this earth and, in essence, said, “I am God.” Look at me. When you see me, you see the Father. The Father and I are one. When you know me, you know the Father. Jesus reveals God. Jesus allows us to see God and experience God. His compassion shows us God’s compassion. His gentleness shows us God’s gentleness. His mercy shows us God’s mercy. Jesus’ forgiveness reveals to us God’s forgiveness. And his sacrificial death on the cross shows us very clearly the depth of our God’s abounding love.
You can stand beside your husband’s casket and doubt the love of God. You can doubt the love of God in the cancer ward or in the unemployment line. But you cannot doubt God’s love when you kneel at the foot of the cross.
God loves you. His abundant love for you motivates everything. There’s nothing our God does that is not compelled by his deep love for you. There’s nothing he allows to happen to you that is not driven by his desire to be in relationship with you today and to live with you for ever.
Peace,
Allan
The divine command is to love. Love God and love others. Period. Our Lord says there are no greater commandments. All the Law and the Prophets, everything God says and God wills, is summed up in the command to love. Always. Everyone. Period.
Now, be ready, because you’re going to suffer. You’re going to be questioned. If you decide to love, you might even be mistreated or ostracized. Don’t be surprised if you lose the popularity contests when you choose to love God and love others. Love, period, as a command, as a commitment, as a way of life – that doesn’t fly with this world and all its groups.
But our God is not a group. He’s not a state or an institution or a party or a possession or a race. Hallelujah! He is the eternal Creator of heaven and earth and the loving Father of us all. And his love is everlasting. His love is open and welcoming. It’s inclusive and courageous and compassionate. And it has no fear.
Love doesn’t tear down, it builds up. It never divides, it always unites. And it doesn’t applaud leaders who promote hate and bigotry and division and violence as a way to get things accomplished. Love is humble, not arrogant. It doesn’t boast. It doesn’t repay evil for evil.
All the preaching, all the prophesying, all the giving – it’s worthless, it has no value if there’s no love. The Bible says love is more important than faith and knowledge. Love is more important than hope and good works. Love takes precedent over our worship assemblies and our voting records. It’s more important than our budget meetings and party platforms and theological positions. Love is bigger and more important than any issue that can possibly be out there in our local paper or on the national news. And if that’s true – and we know it is! – we must be more committed to loving others than we are to any of those issues.
We have to place unconditional, God-ordained love in the primary position of our hearts and minds and in God’s Church. All our time and energy, all our passion and strength, must go toward love. Period.
Whatever you do as a child of God and a disciple of Christ must be done in love. If anybody tells you to do otherwise, if you get an email insisting that you forward something that’s not loving, if any leader or group urges you to act in any way toward anybody or other groups that’s not loving, you know that person or that group is not under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
If I don’t love, I am cutting off the very expression of God’s nature in my body and soul. To not love is to act opposite of our Lord. Love is where we find our ultimate fulfillment and realize our potential as God’s people. It’s not love, but… It’s never love, maybe… It’s not love, under certain conditions… It’s just love. Period.
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Luka Doncic is only 23.
Go Mavs.
Allan
Those who do not love feel superior to everyone else.
Those who love feel equal to everyone else.
Those who love much gladly take the lower place.
Each one of us can identify his position somewhere along this spectrum, which comprises the three degrees of the spiritual life here on earth:
Death for those who do not love.
Life for those who love.
Holiness for those who love much.
The beatitude of the merciful relates. like all the beatitudes, to the realm of holiness and we have to admit that Jesus set his sights high when he had the courage and confidence to place this lofty ideal before us. It is the beatitude that he himself lived to the full, stooping, out of love, to the lowest place, even to the extent of being rejected as a common criminal, fit only to be hung on a stake.
~ Carlo Carretto, In Search of the Beyond
“Let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” ~1 John 4:7-8
God is love and we are not. We are selfish creatures. We think first and most about ourselves. It’s wired into us to behave like this. We’re human. It’s natural. We’re born this way. Think about it. You never have to teach a young child how to be selfish or greedy or to want his own way.
Our God knows this about us. He knows our tendencies as humans to look out first for our own needs and desires. That’s why God commands us to love.
Our God is not shy about demanding that we love. He’s not subtle, either. Scripture never one time backs down anywhere from the insistence that we love Because it is grounded in the very nature of our God who IS love.
God is love. That means God’s will is love. His character is love. His motivation for every action is love. His very names as he reveals it to us throughout the Bible is abounding love.
To do something other than love is to do something other than God’s will. And against God’s name. To say or do something unloving, to write or forward anything that’s unloving, about anybody in any context in any format, is ungodly.
Because God is love.
Peace,
Allan
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” ~1 John 3:1
Our God does not measure his love to us. He doesn’t weigh it on the scales or scoop it out with a spoon. He doesn’t give us just enough of his love to get us by or just as much of his love as we might deserve. He floods us with his love! We have more of his love than we could ever ask for or imagine! That’s the one thing you can ask God to do that’s just impossible – God, will you love me more? Nope. Can’t. Impossible. He lavishes us with his love.
“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.” ~Ephesians 1:7-8
Our Father lavishes us with his grace. We sing about it. God’s amazing grace. God’s matchless grace. God’s grace that reaches even me!
God’s forgiveness is over the top. It’s not that you’re forgiven of some of your sins or you’re forgiven of most of your sins or all the little sins or every sin except that one sin. It’s not that you’re forgiven if you do this one thing or keep these sets of rules or say this particular creed. In Jesus Christ, God’s forgiveness is total and complete and forever! In Jesus, every single one of your sins – all of ’em, name ’em! – are all gone forever. They are removed from you as far as the east is from the west. They are hurled to the bottom of the sea, never to be dredged up again. God doesn’t put your sins up on the top shelf in the corner of a dark closet just so he can pull them out and hold them against you at the worst possible time. God’s forgiveness is lavish and complete.
Lavish love. Limitless grace. Inexhaustible forgiveness. Unmerited favor. Eternal glory. Our God is passionate about you and me. And he holds nothing back.
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I’m not writing anything here today about the Mavericks. I don’t want to jinx it.
Peace,
Allan
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