How do you Measure God's Love?

I recently viewed a clip advertising a sermon in which a pastor asked, "How do you  measure God's love?" The question stirred my heart and lead me to reflect on how I have measured  God's love over the years. I must admit that there were were different times that I doubted God's love a lot. There were several different reasons for the doubt I had. 

First, some of the doubt was connected to traumatic events I had experienced. At the time of these doubts I believed God would want to protect someone He loved and yet there were several times I experienced trauma from which He didn't protect me.  

There were times that I doubted God's love because I had prayed important prayers and God did not answer with a "yes" or "no." Instead, He seemed to go silent at the times I believed I needed Him the most. Sometimes those prayers were about difficult situations I was facing, sometimes they were about the hurt a loved one was experiencing, or they were about very difficult relationships I had and I  begged God to resolve or to heal and the silence along with the hurt seemed to never end.  

There were other times I believed God loved me a little, but not as much as He loved others. At the time I had a habit of comparing my life and how God worked in it to the lives of others and to the way He worked in their circumstances. I also compared the blessings I noticed God bestowing on others, but not on me. Of course I realize now that I didn't really understand a lot about God and how He relates to His people. Because of that I had developed a nice neat little box that I tried to put God in. Now, I am so thankful that He refused to operate in the limited way I thought He should. 

There was also a period of time in which the Enemy had convinced me I was unloved and unlovable. He whispered that in my mind every chance He got and over time that belief became a stronghold in my life and skewed my ability to see and recognize God's love, His blessings, and His continual work in my life.

Several years ago I heard a sermon on loving God with all of our heart, soul, and mind, I asked God to teach me how to do that and for the next year He bombarded me with sermons, music, and unsolicited notes of encouragement all speaking to the radical love God had for me. Towards the end of that year I realized I would never be able to love God the way I wanted to without believing in His immeasurable love for me. 

Not long after that I was struggling with a besetting sin and was so discouraged. I confessed that sin and remember saying something like, "Lord, I want to get rid of this sin so that you can really love me!" As I was walking and praying I was listening to Christian music and a song about the cross started playing and in my mind I saw Jesus hanging on the cross with my sins etched into His skin. My eyes filled with tears and I glanced up at His face, expecting to see the same condemnation I was feeling towards myself. But instead I saw love and compassion in His eyes. That was when the truth of Romans 5:8 moved from my head to my heart. "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." 

I began to understand that the measure of God's love wasn't found in His protection from the hard we experience in this fallen world I so badly wanted to be paradise. It wasn't found in the timeliness of answered prayers as the waits themselves were an invitation to keep pouring my heart out to Him. The measure of God's love wasn't even in what I perceived as blessings at the time. For I have since learned that there is as much blessings in the wait as there is in the prayers that are answered with a "yes" or a "no." I have also learned that blessings come in many forms. They can be material, they can be relational. They can be timely words spoken that are like honey to a hungry soul. They can be loving confrontations that redirect me back to the path that God has laid out for me. They can be the Lord's words, jumping from the page to my heart in His perfect timing. They can be prayers answered yes, prayers answered no, and they can be prayers that are met with God's silence--a silence that drives me to my knees and into deeper trust with Him.  

The measure of God love was, is, and always will be the cross. While I was His enemy, steeped in sin, selfish, and unloving, He sacrificed His life, taking my, rebellion, and selfish ways in His flesh so that  He could impute to me His righteousness. When I understood that truth, it totally changed how I viewed my my relationship with God. I no longer spent enormous amounts of  energy trying to measure or to earn God's love. Instead, I started looking for Him and His love in every situation I encounter. If it is a happy situation I find that He is there in the midst of it celebrating with me. If it is a hard and painful situation I find Him there with me, revealing more about Himself to me and He walks me through the hard. If it is a trying time, He is there lovingly stretching me so I can walk through it with my faith strengthened, my sinful parts exposed and whittled, and my my character molded to be more like Him. 

Can I encourage you today to honestly look at your thoughts, actions, and reactions to life? Then ask yourself what these things reveal to you about how you are measuring God's love. If you have distanced yourself from God, it could be a sign that you are measuring His love by a faulty measuring stick. Acknowledge the disappoints and pain you have experienced and express to Him the confusion you may have over unanswered prayers and then camp on Romans 5:8 and let the truth of it sink into your heart. Then you can view those things through the truth of a Heart-shaped lens, which will free you to live loved. 

I Love You. I Have Always Loved You

Saturday night my fourteen year-old-grandson asked his mom to take him and a friend to see a scary movie. She was worn out from teaching, graduate school, and driving through LA traffic for his water polo meet, so she suggested he ask me. I love spending time with him and felt honored that he was okay with that idea. So, I got to accompany two teenage boys to see A Quiet Place. I went expecting it to be a typical scary movie and it was intense; however, it was also a movie with a well-developed plot, telling the story about a family that worked very hard to survive monsters that had been attacking humans.

In the beginning of the story, the family consists of a dad, a pregnant mom, and three children. The oldest child is a teenage girl who is deaf. the middle child is a boy who is nine or ten and the youngest boy was probably two or three.  The world has been invaded by ugly monsters who are blind, but who have ears that hear everything and attack what they hear. In the opening scene, they are walking from the store in town back to their farm. They did not realize the little one had picked up a toy space ship in the store that made noise. They were walking single file with him in the rear, following his deaf sister. He lagged behind as he began to explore the space ship. All of a sudden, the little guy turned on the space ship and it made loud sounds that drew a monster. The deaf girl couldn't hear the sound and the dad, who was at the front of the line, couldn't get to the son in time to save him from the monster.

The rest of the film is about this family who is not only working hard to survive, but is a family dealing with the tragic loss of the youngest child, each in their own way. The parents had moved the family into their underground root cellar to keep them safer and they communicated through sign language. The dad had developed quite a security system of cameras so he could observe their farm for approaching monsters. Every so often one of the family members does something that accidentally that draws the monsters toward them. As viewers, we could see the enormous guilt that followed the mishaps that put their lives in jeopardy. We could also see the weight of the burden the parents bear in keeping their family safe. Both parents do a great job of reassuring the kids, but they also have to remind them over and over of the dangers they face.

One day the dad decides to take the boy to teach him how to fish with traps. The boy, still traumatized by what happened to his little brother, is terrified and doesn't want to go away from the farm. The daughter pleads with her dad to take her instead, but the dad tells her to stay with her mom and he gets down eye-to-eye with his son and promises to keep him safe. He even takes him to a waterfall where under the safety of its noise they are able to talk to each other. The dad listens humbly to his son and learns a lot about his daughter from him.

The daughter feels guilty for her brother's death and has come to believe her dad blames her for it as well and has concluded he doesn't love her. She is aware that being deaf also brings more risk to her family. The mom gets busy with laundry and the daughter places a few things in her backpack and goes to the place where her littlest brother died. The mom goes into labor and as she brings the laundry down the cellar, she steps on a nail, causing her to drop a picture frame which draws the monster to their farm. She sneaks back to their house and moves from room to room to hide from the monster and to give birth. At the house, she flips on red outside lights to warn her husband that the monster is there and that she needs help.

As the father and the son arrive at the property, the father sees the lights and sends the son to set off fireworks so their noise would draw the monster away from the house, allowing him to get to his wife. The sister sees the fireworks and comes back, finding her little brother hiding in a field. They run to the grain silo to wait for their dad to come get them. Eventually, they connect with him and are making their way back to the house when they come face to face with a monster. The dad tells the kids to go get in the truck and he grabs an ax and tries to attack the monster, but the monster flings him and the ax to the ground. The little boy screams in anguish when his dad is hit, causing the monster to go after the two kids in the truck. The dad manages to stand up and makes eye contact with his daughter and signs to her, “I love you. I have always loved you." He then lets out a blood-curdling scream sacrificing his life for theirs.

I glanced at the two teens with me who both are good kids with good hearts and both of them looked away from the screen and their bodies literally slumped into their chairs. Later they talked about how they wish they would not have killed the dad, because he was a good dad. The family is left to figure out the weaknesses of the monsters to survive.

After I came home, I processed the movie as it felt somewhat personal to me. When I was working with a therapist on my eating disorder, she asked me to draw what the eating disorder looked like to me. I couldn't draw it because it had looked one way when it first began as a poor way of coping with trauma. It evolved, and as it took root it became a self-destructive stronghold in my life.  The description I wrote for the therapist so long ago perfectly described the monsters in the movie. I decided those monsters could represent the sin from which God has always been protecting us. We don't always recognize the depravity of our sin or its destructiveness. Yes, we sometimes rebelliously choose sin over God, but there are times we get simply get careless and just slip into it and before we know it, we are being consumed and destroyed by it.

I didn't wake up one day and decide to have an eating disorder. It began as a way of trying to find control in the midst of the chaotic emotions swirling beneath the surface, but it quickly took over my life. The control, which at first felt good, became uncontrollable and changed the way I viewed myself. It weighed me down with shame so toxic that ugly self-deprecating thoughts continuously ran through my head. In the same way, I have also seen alcohol take over a person and destroy her and her relationships with her children, leaving gaping wounds that will take a long time to heal. I have seen families destroyed by pornography as it took over the life of a spouse and a dad. And I have seen drug addictions that have taken over the user to the point that all he cares about is his next hit.

God has always wanted to protect us. He has always loved us, but the enemy tells us that our sin isn't that bad, that God, is depriving us, and that God doesn't really love us. In recovery circles we hear statements like, "Oh, that is not your child talking, it is the drugs." But the truth is that we all have a bent to do wrong and we use denial and lies to hide shame. As we sink into the miry clay, our character, which is a fluid thing, begins to change and even the most truthful people begin to lie--we lie to "protect" the next hit, to hide what we spend, and to hide the disorders that gives us a false sense of control, to hide the gossip we share so no one will notice the big monster on our back. We lie to try to shape what others think about us, so we don't feel the guilt or the shame over the choices we have made, over the fact that we are losing control of our ability to choose, and the fact that we know we are loving poorly as a result of the strongholds in our lives.

My thoughts that night also went to the ladies I have worked with, many of which didn't have dads and/or moms that worked as hard to provide and protect as the movie parents did. I thought about those who had at some point in their healing journey expressed the deep longing they had burning in their souls to be protected and to be fully known and loved in spite of their wounds, their flaws, their mistakes their needs, and their sin.  And the Lord whispered into my heart, "I have loved you all that way."

It is so true! Since the Fall we have all been struggling at some level with shame that causes us to doubt the love of God. And yet, the Scripture, from beginning to end, points us to Jesus and shows us His great love, which ultimately was demonstrated on the cross. I know at the times that I have pictured Christ on the cross with my sin etched in His body, I have looked up into His face and I have seen the same look on His face that was on the face of the movie dad as he signed his love to his daughter the last time. And that look said as loudly as the signs, "I love you. I have always loved you."  

God's Love Demonstrated Part 1

Every so often I find myself in need of revisiting the great love of our God so for the next few weeks I will be writing on the different ways God has chosen to demonstrate His love to us. So often we say we know God loves us, but our actions don't convey that we truly believe it. When trials and temptations come we often find ourselves hearing the enemies voice trying to convince us that we have been forgotten, deserted, or at the least less loved than others we know.

As a young believer, I believed God loved me only because He created me. That belief didn't translate into a passionate, radical, and personal love that a perfect Father has for His children. In my mind it was more like a love of obligation and a sense of "I will put up with you" because I have to kinda love.

One day when my first child was waking up from his first nap in his "big boy" bed, he realized he could get out of the bed by himself. I heard his little feet hit the floor and he ran down the hall and slowed just as he got to the corner and peaked around at me to see if it was okay for him to come to me. I remember my heart beating faster as I heard him running down the hall and I held my arms out for him and he smiled big and ran into them. I sensed in my spirit the Lord saying to me that that was the same love He had toward me. That mean that His attitude when I approached Him in prayer, wasn't impatience. That meant I wasn't a bother demanding His attention. That meant He felt towards me the same kind of delight I felt towards my own child. I realized at the time that I had a hard time accepting that God delighted in me. Over the years I have tried to notice all the different ways God shows us His love. Today, I want to look at one of the most significant ways God demonstrated His love towards us--that is in the person of Jesus. We know God's word says Christ demonstrated His love by dying for us, but He also demonstrated His love by living among us.

The coming of Jesus was in no way a new plan conceived at the last minute by a desperate God watching His children walk in sin. No way! For in eternity past the plan was born in the heart of God. The Creator, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Sovereign God, chose to veil His glory and leave the incomprehensible beauty of His heavenly home and grow in the dark confinement of a human womb. While His heavenly position entitled Him to be born in a palace and wrapped in purple linens, He opted to be born in the middle of a sheepfold, wrapped in swaddling clothes. He by-passed a gold inlaid cradle for a simple manger so prophetic of His mission as Jehovah's sacrificial Lamb. He chose to limit His limitless abilities and powers to show us He understands us and is a sympathetic High Priest tempted in every way we've ever been tempted, yet without sin. To put it simply, to tell us He loved us Jesus chose to become a man.  

It is hard to comprehend a love deep enough that it would motivate Christ to leave His heavenly home as a baby and become dependent upon a woman who was His creation. It is also hard to understand how He would choose to grow up in a home with half brothers and half sisters who didn't recognize Him for who He was or what He came to do. It's hard to comprehend a love so outrageous it would cause Him who spoke the universe into place to become an apprentice in His stepfather's shop. There He no longer could use His limitless creativity as His medium was hardwood and His tools were tools made by human hands. Rather than speaking things into being, He chose to be limited to the use of His human hands--hands that now became dirty, callused, and rough--just like ours. Yet, those same strong hands revealed God's tender compassion by gently reaching out and blessing the children that followed Him. They were also the same hands that restored sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and mew life to leprous flesh. They were the same hands that washed His disciples feet and healed hurts that were buried in the deepest parts of men's souls.

It is hard to understand a love so outrageous that it would motivate God to take on a human body and become vulnerable enough to experience physical  discomfort like our own--He was prone to hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. He even experienced emotional needs and found it necessary to ask three of His friends to pray for Him as He was facing His impending death. It is hard to understand a love so outrageous that it would motivate Him to set aside His own needs to meet the needs of those pressing in on Him. If they needed food, He provided it. If they needed healing, He healed them. If they needed comfort, He wiped away their tears. If they needed knowledge, He taught them through sermons, parables, and life lessons. If they needed courage, He encouraged them. If they needed rest, He took them aside to get it. If they needed freedom, He fought for it by casting out demons that vexed their souls. Even when His own emotions were raw and painful, He still ministered to others.

With the same voice He had used to speak the universe into place He comforted those who mourned. With the same voice He had used to calm the angry seas He dispelled the fears of His disciples and offered forgiveness to sinners. With the same voice that confronted the Pharisees, calling them vipers, He offered blessing to the children  and mercy to the guilty. It was the same voice He had used to comfort two sisters whose brother had just been laid to rest that turned the situation around with power and majesty, ordering the Lazarus to come forth from the tomb. It was the same voice that spoke with authority to cast out legions of demons that spoke so kindly that it healed the deepest shame of an adulterous woman.

It was His eyes that were capable of seeing everything that could penetrate the hardest of hearts. His eyes that sparkled in the early morning light as He communed with His heavenly Father also shed human tears when He saw the people were like sheep without a shepherd. It was His eyes that were the only eyes that had a right to condemn, but instead, being motivated by outrageous love, chose to use His eyes as instruments of saving grace. For as He gazed into the eyes of people broken by their sin and shame, it is obvious He conveys the heart of the living God--a heart so full of tender mercies, beating with a passions so strong and so outrageous Jesus chose to be the one to make it known by becoming a man. Oh, that we would truly begin to comprehend the outrageous love of God from which we can never be separated. It is not a high and lofty love, it is a rich deeply personal love that has that power to save, heal, and transform.

Struggling to Love Well

"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 wrong doing, but rejoices with the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things,
hope all things, endures all things. Love never ends."

1Corinthians 13:4-8a  

 

Love is a concept that is hard to express. Because of this the Greek Language had many words used to describe different kinds of love. One word was used for sexual love, one for friendship, one for relational comfort, and still another for sacrificial love. As I have shared before, I realized years ago that I didn't know how to love God with all of my heart, mind, and soul and I was frustrated at my inability to love people well. I wanted to love, but fear, self-centeredness, self-protection, and a lack of compassion seemed to get in the way.

As I studied the Scriptures pertaining to love, God reminded me of the verse that says we love because He first loved us. I realized then that it is God who fills our empty hearts with love and enables us to love well. Before I understood this, I had spent a lot of time trying to earn love from people as well as God, not realizing Christ had already demonstrated God's love to me through Christ's death. The love I was so desperately trying to earn and trying to muster up to give away was something I already possessed. I had stronghold that caused me to believe I was unloved. It's sad that I didn't enjoy His love simply because of my own unbelief.  

I realized to love God and others I had to first believe God's love for me was real, tangible,  and  personal. As I spend time in His word, I am filled with His love and I am able to love others better. Sometimes I mistakenly think I am getting this love thing down and then God has me spend time with a group of people, which then reveals how far I still have to go to consistently love as He loves. Sometimes it's a ministry opportunity that He gives me and I find myself sitting across from a woman telling her story. As an outsider, it's easy to see how she hurts herself by believing lies and making the choices she makes. Sometimes, I get glimpses of how she is also hurting her family and I can find myself getting impatient and angry with her. I realize there is a righteous anger, but it doesn't take much for a judgmental spirit to meld righteous anger into unholy disdain. If I allow that to happen because I fail to stay connected to God, the love the lady desperately needs to experience is unavailable, the grace she needs to be bathed in is overshadowed by harshness, and the truth she needs to discover sure isn't flowing from  my mouth.

I think many of us experience this struggle with loving well during the holidays as we spend time with extended family.  We so often find it easier to be loving towards friends than towards family.  There are several reasons for this. First, maybe it's because we think we know each other better than we do. The reality is we are all individuals with differing personalities and experiences. In addition, the longer we've been apart from family new experiences and new people have continued to mold us individually, some positively and some negatively.

Second, we often have unfinished emotional business from the past and we tend to view each other through lenses that we developed growing up. We have a hard time seeing things as they actually are.
Our views are tainted by what we already believe.

Third, most of us didn't learn to set boundaries in families of origin and we allow each other get away with disrespectful and rude behavior. We know full well we would not treat co-workers or friends the way we treat family members; nor, would we judge friends as harshly as we do siblings. Most of us as kids weren't taught to handle conflict respectfully and because of this there are often deep wounds unhealed. Most of us weren't allowed to confront rude or wounding behaviors and if we tried to address such things we were told to suck it up, to forgive, or to quit being so sensitive. Now either shame or pride keeps us from having healing conversations, talking about pain that is being currently inflicted, and wanting to look more together than we really are.  

I, for one, often come out of the holidays with a heavy heart because I know I didn't love as well as I wanted to. I experienced and expressed impatience and frustration. I didn't speak the truth as lovingly as I desired. I participated in unkind gossip. I know the disappoint I feel is because I use the Scripture as a bar to measure how well I love. God describes love with some "is's," some "is not's." some "does not's," and some "does." As the verse above states: Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not envious. Love is not boastful. Love is not arrogant. Love is not rude. Love is not irritable. Love is not resentful. Love does not rejoice in wrong doing. Love does rejoice with truth. Love does bear all things. Love does hope all things. Love does endure all things. Love does not end...mmmm....sounds a lot like the way Jesus loves.

I know during the holidays there were times my lack of love was obvious because it came out in impatient or harsh words. It came out in my actions when I left the room to keep from spouting angry words or made sarcastic statements followed by a laugh to make it look like a joke. It came out in my lack of attention when someone was speaking to me. There were other times my lack of love may have been invisible to others, but believe me I was wrestling with it in my heart, which is impatience, arrogance, irritability, and resentful thoughts masked behind a smile.

There is a fleshly part of me that simply wants to avoid big family functions and some ministry events to avoid the guilt and shame that comes from loving so poorly. But the Word says, "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I am nothing." This tells me that the books I've written, the sacrifices I've made, the money and gifts given are all nothing if I don't choose to love well. The truth is that it is impossible to learn to love well by isolating. I have to rub shoulders with others in order for my sinful and unloving ways to be exposed, confessed, and changed. But, so often instead of embracing exposure, I find myself wanting to blame others. I find myself wanting to criticize instead of dealing with my impatience, unkindness, envy, arrogance, and resentment. I find myself wanting to point out others' flaws instead of dealing with the my own blaring flaws revealed by interactions. I confess I sometimes want to walk away instead of facing the truth of how little it takes to not be willing to bear with another or give up the hope that a relationships can change, grow, or flourish with a bit of humility and work on my part. I am a person who desires quick fixes and instant gratification, but the truth is in this broken world relationships aren't easy because they are laden with emotional baggage and hot buttons easily pushed. It isn't easy for me who wants control so I can protect my heart, preserve my pride, and deflect the pain I hate to experience.

I often ask myself how I can love better. There are some things I've come up with--some practical and some of a more spiritual nature. First, I can eat healthy, get plenty of sleep, and exercise. This helps me to deal with the anxiety that rises in social settings. We don't like to admit it, but our bodies, souls, and spirits are intricately connected and impact how we relate in huge ways. As an introvert, I also know that I can take breaks when I feel depleted.

Second, I can check my expectations at the door of every meeting and social setting. That means I give up the right of expecting others to be a certain way, choosing, instead, to accept them as they really are. It means I give up the expectations I have of how I think we will relate and/or interact and accept the truth of where we are in our relationship at any given moment. It also means I look to God, not the other person to fix pain, resolve loneliness, and fill my love-starved heart.

Third, I give up the right to judge and choose to be curious about other people. Often their behavior is driven by what they have experienced, what they fear, or what they desire. If I am curious and ask more questions, I may understand a person better and have more compassion and be more caring in my interactions with them. I may also have the opportunity to be a conduit of grace, love, and healing for him or her.

Fourth, if I feel God leading me to speak His truth into a situation I can choose to take time to pray about it, choose the timing carefully, and choose to do so in a loving manner.

Fifth, I can choose to live loved. This means that I choose to connect daily with God and let Him fill me with His love. When I do that, I am more confident, content, and kind. When I do that, I am more patient, kind, and forgiving. When I do that, I am less confused, not as easily wounded, and not as offended by thoughtless comments, relational neglect, or careless actions. When I do that I am more concerned with a person's heart than how they treat me. When I do that, I am more about giving love than trying to extract it from others.

Sixth, I can choose to live graced. In this life I know I'll always love imperfectly. I can choose to wallow in my failure or I can choose to live life in faith, graced by God so I can seek forgiveness,  love even when it is messy, and move past my failures. When I do this, I'm more apt to extend grace. When I do this, I am able to value relationships enough to do the hard work they take. When I do this I become more like Jesus than at any other time.

So, living isolated is not an option for this Christ follower! He set the example of love by leaving the Safe love He knew from eternity to live relationally with people like us. He walked with, talked with, and ministered to broken people with a bent to sin. He shared His heart, confronted, encouraged, and bore their sin in His body, and ultimately sacrificed His life for them and for us. Comfort wasn't His goal, love was. Even when He was misunderstood, rejected, and slandered, He still loved.

The prayer of my heart this year will be: "Lord help me to recognize your love and fill me with it. Please give me the desire, the ability, and the wisdom to love others well. Help me to love You with all of my heart, my mind, my soul, and my might. Help me to love others with the same sacrificial love you showed me."

 

This is Love

"This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another…we love because He first loved us."

1 John 4:10, 11…19

What is love? Is it an emotion or a choice? I used to wrestle with this question every time I heard a pastor say that love is a choice or an action. A while back I was attending a Bible study in which we were asked if it was okay for Christians to fake love. The discussion was so lively and thought provoking that I came home and searched the Scripture. As I read through Colossians, I found that Paul said some interesting things that really resonated with my heart. First, we were loved by God and we were reconciled to Him. Because of this, we are free from the penalty of our sin. Someday we will also be free from even the presence of sin in our hearts as well as our surroundings. But, in the here and now we live in human bodies and we have human emotions and very human thoughts. The only way we can be free from the power of sin is to choose to live by faith. That faith includes the belief that God is powerful enough to help us to do His will. In Colossians, Paul called it putting off the sinful nature and clothing oneself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. He also said that we are to bear with and forgive each other. Because Paul chose to use words like "put on," it seems to me that we do have a choice to treat other in a loving way, maybe even a choice to love or not to love. That implies that love is in part an action. This fits with what the verses above say. Let's gleam what we can about God's love and see what kind of love He is calling us to demonstrate

.

First, God was the initiator of the love relationship that we have with Him. He chose to do this when we were His enemies and were living independently of Him. We see this by His decision to send His son, Jesus, who in love took on the form of human flesh so that He could demonstrate the depths and the riches of Both the Father’s and the Son’s eternal love to us. Were we lovely in our rebellion? Were we lovely in our selfishness? I seriously doubt it. Nothing about us would have caused God to do what He did. He did it because He chose to.

God chose to because it was His desire for us to experience love, and to be drawn back to the life He created us to live. Secondly, God paid a huge price for our benefit -- His Son. He placed him in the hands of one of His creations and made the Son who had no needs dependent on His creation for survival. He sent Jesus from glorious heaven to humble circumstances. He sent Him from the presence of His perfect love to a place that is full of hatred. He sent Him from a Holy sinless place to a place surrounded by all sorts of perversions and selfishness. He sent Him for a place where eternal life is the norm to a world in which all creatures are moving towards a physical death. It was in His death that the sinless Christ atoned for our sin and our selfishness and imputed to us His perfect goodness. Was it easy? I don't think it was. I think it was painful for God to watch His Son die. We know there is great joy and celebration in heaven for every sinner who repents, but I can't help but also wonder if there isn't grief when a person reaches the point that his heart is so hard that all of heaven know that he will never repent.

We are called to love like Jesus loved. What does that mean? It means that we will initiate love relationships with others. Our natural tendency is not to seek people to love, but to get people to love us. However, in Christ our supernatural tendency is to be lovers. As we learn to bask in the truth of God's endless sacrificial love we will be able to initiate love to others and invite them into relationships, not only with us, but the One who enables us to love as He loves. In Him, we will be filled so that we won't wait for other's to invite us, we will seek them out. It means that we will make sacrifices to show love to someone else. It may be monetary sacrifices; sacrifices of time or a sacrifice of something like our pride. For example, what will your friends think if they see you talking to certain people God calls you to love? If your friends assume the worst, will you choose to love anyway? Lastly, the motive of our love will be for the benefit of the other person rather than for us.

In closing, there will be times in our humanity that love will be warm and fuzzy and easy to do. There will be times where we will have to choose to put it on in the form of patience, forbearance, compassion and kindness. There will be times we may have to fall on our knees before our God who so lavishly demonstrated His love for us and confess that we don't have it in us to love someone and ask Him to shed His love abroad in our heart. I don't think that is fake, but it is the reality that we face as human beings living in bodies that are affected both by sin and a fallen world.

Sometimes, I find myself just longing to be with the Lord, knowing that His presence will once for all perfect His love in me. But, until I am face to face with Jesus I will at times only be able to love in His power and strength. So, how are you doing in the love department? Have you initiated any friendships lately? Have you made any sacrifices to demonstrate His love? Have you done a loving act solely for the recipient’s benefit, not your own?

Prayer: Father, Thank you for initiating a love relationship with us. Thank you for Your sacrificial love and for atoning for our sin with the blood of Jesus. Please help us to bask in Your great love and fill us with the desire to walk in Your love and to love the way You do. Help us be bold in initiating relationships and put it in our hearts to sacrifice our time, energy, and our pride so that others might know they are loved not only by us, but by You as well. Amen.

Loving Like Jesus

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

John 15:12

According to the Old Testament, we are to love the Lord God with all of our hearts, minds, souls, and might. We are also to love our neighbors as ourselves. I have never been sure what that kind of love really looks like. Then one day I realized the above commandment Jesus gave tells us how we can begin to fulfill the Old Testament command. Essentially, the verse in John tells us to look at how Jesus loves and to use that as a standard for loving. It’s clear from both His words and actions that Jesus loved His heavenly Father, loved His friends, loved strangers, and loved Himself. It is also clear He loved His enemies.

What did Jesus’ love look like? It looked like spending time with His Father in prayer. It looked like trusting His Father even in the midst of storms, mistreatment, rejection, false accusations, and difficult tasks. It looked like resisting temptation. It looked like teaching, admonishing, and exhorting others. It looked like touching the untouchable. It looked like healing the sick, the lame, the blind, and the deaf. It looked like spending time with children, sinners, and the outcast. It looked like casting demons out of the souls of men. It looked like crossing cultural, gender, economical, and spiritual boundaries to invite all who would come, into a relationship with Him. It looked like being social and partying with friends. It looked like sharing openly His heart and seeking others where they were at. It looked like wrestling so hard He sweat blood over God’s will of the cross and His own desire to avoid it. It looked like choosing to obey His Father even in that severe state of angst so that He could reconcile us to Himself, which is in essence loving His enemies.

When we think of Jesus’ enemies, we tend to think of Satan, the Pharisees, those who mistreated Him, lied about Him, and who put Him to death. But, according to Romans 5:10, we were all enemies of God before we were reconciled to Him through Jesus. That’s such a sobering thought. If Jesus considered you and I His enemies when He chose the cross on our behalf, what right do we have to refuse to love those we call enemies? If we’re serious about loving as He loves, we must identify our enemies and choose to love them. They’re the people that aren’t for us, but are stand against us and the ministries we do. They’re the people who glare daggers through our hearts every time they see us. They’re the abusers who rob us of innocence or left bruises on both our bodies and our hearts. They’re those who criticize us, wounding us to the core of our being with harsh words. They’re those who refuse to see us, withholding love and compassion from us. They’re those who isolate us through slander or who kill or rob our joy on a daily basis. They’re those in positions of God-given authority who use their position to do great harm to those they should protect. Some even consider God an enemy. But, sadly, for many of us, our worst enemies are ourselves.

We must realize is that every person we hate is a person Jesus radically loved unto death. That same Spirit that loved you and I unto death indwells us and can empower us to love as He loves. The Spirit gives us the capacity to radically love when it’s humanly impossible to do so. It requires we bask in His love and choose to allow Him to love through us. As we are open to His working in our hearts and our lives we will become able to love with His love–and that is a love that knows absolutely no bounds. Have you allowed God to penetrate your heart with His pure and radical love? Is His love a reality in your everyday life? Does it help shape your attitudes, thoughts and actions? Does it overflow to those around you? Is it big enough to encompass your enemies?

Prayer: Father, thank you for loving us with your great love. Help us to meditate on it and let it shape our thoughts, attitudes, actions, and emotions. Help us to bask in the joy of knowing that we have always been, are now, and always will be radically, irrevocable, and eternally loved. Give us the desire to love like you have loved us. Give us humility and grace to see others as You see them. Give us wisdom in how to love in a way that invites others to more fully live in you light. Amen.

A Sacrificial Love

"My command is this: Love each other, as I have loved you.
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."
John 15:12-13

Under the Old Testament law people were required to love others to the extent they loved themselves. In John 13:34 Jesus gave a new commandment to love other as He loves us. He reiterated it fully in the above passage. When Christ stated something more than once we know it was something He wanted us to understand and apply. Within the context of the passage, the church was released from having to focus on obeying the law to focusing on loving God and others and it is in that love that obedience to the law is fulfilled. What an awesome freedom God gives us in that we do not have to focus on a list of do’s and don’ts. All we have to do is focus on Him. 

As we experience His love and understand the sacrifice behind His love we will be able to respond to Him in love. We will also be empowered through His spirit to love others sacrificially as He loved us. I often ask myself if I would really be willing to lay my life down for Christ or my friends? It is hard for me to even think in those terms, because in our country we aren't often persecuted to that extent. I realize one of the ways I could test myself is to look at my life and my attitudes in the here and now. In doing that I determined I would never die for a friend…

• I wasn't willing to defend when if she is being slandered.
• I wasn't willing to give of my resources if she has material needs.
• I wasn't willing to risk anger in confronting when sin is sinking its talons into her soul. 
• Which I wasn't willing to listen when she's hurting. 
• I wasn't willing to protect friendship at the risk of losing other friends.
• I wasn't willing to love when I am not loved in return.
• I wasn't willing to forgive when I am hurt.
• I wasn't willing to be transparent at the risk of seeming imperfect.
• I wasn't willing to love when it inconvenienced me.
• I wasn’t willing to give up my tendency to broadcast another's faults, choosing to affirm her virtues instead.
• I wasn't willing to seek forgiveness from whom I wrong. 
• I wasn't willing to help carry heavy burdens.
• I wasn't willing to stop and pray as needed.

As we look through the gospels, we see Christ gave up everything to rub shoulders with people like us. He loved people bound in sin, ravaged by illness, brokenhearted, impoverished, and full of emotional needs. He loved people in the face of extreme opposition, petty criticism, radical misunderstanding, and even in humiliation. He loved people in the face of hatred, when He was being beaten, had a crown of thorns slammed onto His brow, with each blow of the hammer that nailed him to the cross, and with each insult hurled as they spat in His face and as His blood stained the cross. He loved people even when the weight of our sin was placed on Him. He loved in the heartbreak of His Father's wrath being poured out on Him and He loved in His death. He loves us just as His Father has called Him to—sacrificially and completely.

If we are willing to die to ourselves and live unto God, He will love those He puts in our paths through us. We will find ourselves loving sacrificially and completely. We will find ourselves loving with a love that loves in the little things as well as in the big. If we love in life, we can rest assured we will grow enough to love in the face of death. 

The questions we need to wrestle with are: Do we truly at a core level believe Christ loved us fully and completely? Do we have the desire in us to love as He loves? If, not what is holding us back from having that desire?

Prayer: Father what an awesome calling…to love as Jesus loved has loved us. Please help us to learn more about the height, the depth, and the breadth of your love that we might be able to reflect that same love to those around us. Please give us the desire to love as you love and your strength to love as passionately as you love in life. Please also give us the courage to love as passionately as you did in death. Amen.