“I LOVE __(FILL IN THE BLANK)__”
Good thing God doesn’t love the way we do. We use the word ‘love’ to state how we feel about Mexican food: “Man, I love Mexican food”, and then turn around and use the same word to tell our spouse or kids how we feel about them: “Honey, have I told you that I love you?”. We’ve watered ‘love’ down so much in todays society that it really has lost most of its true meaning. The word love has become so (and I hate to use this word) mundane. We’ve taken something so precious, so pure and polluted it.
One of the most popular songs of the 80’s was titled ‘I want to know what love is’ by American-British band called Foreigner. It hit number one both here in America as well as in the UK in 1984. It was the bands biggest hit to date. That song was born out of a tempestuous time guitarist Mick Jones was experiencing in his life at that time. He was facing divorce, remarriage, band troubles, etc. He was searching for meaning…for love. For those that have heard the song, and I don’t know of anyone that hasn’t, it has a sort of ‘spiritual’ connotation and feel to it. Some strictly see it as a love song…maybe. However, if you read the lyrics, it seems more like a song about a lonely person searching for the true meaning of love. So, it begs the question…
WHAT IS TRUE LOVE?
No, I’m not talking about ‘The Princess Bride’, though I know that’s the first thing that popped up in your minds when you read the words true love. Let’s see what the Word of God has to say about true love shall we. Look at what Jesus said Himself, when talking about love and joy perfected in John 15:13:
“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”
That’s it! Love, in its purest form, was demonstrated by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by doing exactly that, dying for us! Taking our place on the cross. Here’s another beautiful verse that shows God’s TRUE love for us. Romans 5:8 says:
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Did you catch that? It says that “while we were STILL sinners, Christ died FOR US.” That’s a love that is almost impossible to understand. Do you know why? Because it’s unconditional. Let me give that word some meaning: complete, not hindered by anything, not limited in any way. That’s the kind of love our Heavenly Father has for us.
Unfortunately, we’ve turned love into a feeling. Something you do only if you feel like it. Sadly, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Love is not a feeling…it’s a choice. How many of us have heard that before? We must chose to love when someone is being unloveable. It’s easy to love someone when all is going good. When things are working out. But, when situations or relationships start getting a bit skewed, we tend to throw in the towel and give up. We no longer ‘love’ that person. Why? Well, because, as the ‘Righteous Brothers’ said in their 1964 hit “You’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’”. The mistake comes in thinking that love is a “feeling”. And, when you look at it that way, well, as fickle as we are in our emotions as humans, we’re bound to give up and quit “loving”, because we don’t FEEL like it anymore.
BUT GOD!
“But God…”, I love those two words found all throughout Scripture. If we take God’s example when it comes to love, we see a much different picture than that of our human version of love. His is a love that has no bounds—limitless. It’s pure. It’s real! God loves each of us with unconditional love. And to prove it, let’s go once again to the source of ALL truth, the Bible. John 3:16 says:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
No conditions…period. God could have said: “Until they decide to clean up their act down there, I’m not gonna help them out.” Or worse yet, imagine if God talked the way we do: “I don’t feel like helping them because they’re not acting very lovable right now.”
Praise the Lord for His Love! Amen?
The church has moved away from exemplifying Jesus’ love towards one another. There’s more in-fighting in the church today than ever before. I’ve experienced it first hand. Ego and pride have crept in and taken over like a plague at the highest levels in the church—including at the heights of church leadership. Christians are fighting with one another over the most ridiculous things and petty differences.
FULL CIRCLE
In an article I recently read on the church of Ephesus titled ‘Ephesus: The Loveless Church’, author Travis Johnson made the following observation:
What sobering words to hear from Christ: “…you have abandoned the love you had at first.” The church at Ephesus was not criticized for reading the wrong books, or for having the wrong preachers preach in their pulpit, or because they were not generous givers or faithful witnesses. They were criticized and reprimanded because the church that seemingly had everything, didn’t have the greatest thing: love.
I truly believe that we (the American church) have regressed to the point in which the church of Ephesus found itself in centuries ago. We’ve become a church of outward appearances and wealth. One that goes through the motions and has forgotten where it came from and what our purpose is. I hate to say it, but we have—for the most part—lost the true mark of a believer. We ceased being a church driven by love. As Travis Johnson said that they (the church at Ephesus) had everything, but in all the hustle and bustle of “doing”, they managed to lose their greatest attribute. The one attribute that is still a direct reflection of God’s character: Love! Look at what Revelation 2:4b says:
“…that you have left your first love.”
They ‘left’ their first love…they didn’t lose it, as is the common misconception. That’s a big deal. It denotes a willing part on their behalf. And we are no different. The travesty behind all of this is that our gracious, merciful and forgiving Lord is at the ready to forgive and forget, if we would just turn back to Him, seek Him, His Word and ask Him to help us love once again.
LOVE AND JUSTICE
God is not only a loving God, but at the same time He is a God of justice. Many in today’s churches are only taught about God’s love. But what about His justice? I can tell you this much…it’s perfect! Unlike our extremely flawed justice system. And because He IS perfect in all His ways, He can and does administer justice perfectly. That means that He HAS TO judge sin and evil…and He does and will continue to do so!
I know that’s not a very popular statement too many want to hear these days. God is an ‘equal opportunity’ God. Again, meaning that He is equally loving as He is just. You can’t have one without the other. Can’t separate the two.
I don’t understand why we can’t just have biblical balance. It used to be that much of what we heard back in the day was a lot of hell, fire and brimstone preaching—which was one extreme. Today, the pendulum has swung to the opposite extreme where we mostly hear the love, love, love gospel. The Word of God is a perfectly balanced book. Our approach to sharing Jesus must be ‘co-equal’. After all, that’s the way it’s laid out in scripture. One perfect example of balance is summed up by what we read in Romans 6:23 that says:
“For the wages of sin is death,” (God’s justice attribute)
“but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (God’s love attribute)
So, as I close this out, I’m not so sure that we, the American church, get it. We think that just because God is love (and He is), that He will somehow spare her from judgement. No so! Let me leave you with this verse found in Jeremiah 7:16:
“Therefore do not pray for this people, nor lift up a cry or prayer for them, nor make intercession to Me; for I will not hear you.”
That’s should be a very sobering verse to all of us, especially in light of the times we live in. Please forgive my pessimism, but I don’t think that the church will “sober up”. I believe it’s “drunk” on its affluence, wealth and “fame”. We have more mega churches per capita than anywhere in the entire world. Yet, the church is more deficient and anemic now than it’s ever been. So what does that mean?
Take a look with me at Travis Johnson’s words from his article mentioned earlier in this post. He goes on to say that:
“If we refuse to listen to the correcting and convicting checks of the Holy Spirit, this malady can happen to any church and any believer. Unless love is consistently rekindled, the propensity for becoming unloving increases the longer you study, the more you give, the more success you achieve, and the more you serve others and pour yourself out in ministry. It is entirely possible to love ministry more than you love Christ. Ephesus, while still a remarkable church in many ways, failed to keep the main thing the main thing. Unless our first love is kept vibrant, it can be lost.”
We can lose our first love! That’s a scary thought! Yet I’m not seeing us, as the body of Christ, listening to the continual “correcting and convincing checks of the Holy Spirit”. I see quite the opposite though.
Finally, I see the church about to “pass” (or better yet ‘relinquish’) the button of “witness” to the 144,000. This tells me that the time for the church age is just about over. Once the church’s influence wanes to the point of almost backwards momentum, it’s time to pull the plug and let the “big boys” in. I know that might sound harsh, but, let’s be honest; the 144,000 messianic Jews will do in 7 years what we as the church were unable or inept to do in over 2,000+ years of church history.
BOTTOM LINE
The bottom line is that Jesus loves you! More than you know. He loves you so much that He died for you and me so that we wouldn’t have to spend eternity in a place of eternal torment called hell. That’s true love!
If you don’t know Jesus, I implore you to call on the only name which we can be saved…Jesus Christ! Don’t put if off! Every single one of us is assured eternity. The difference is what will your eternal address be: Heaven or Hell?
😁Have A Nice Day!👍🏻
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Jesus Loves You!