The Greatest Love

2/6/2012

Weather Report From Heaven: Sunny and bright, with an abundance of light and lots of singing and rejoicing.

Bible Verse of the Day: 1John 4:8 " Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."

We live in a performance based culture where our acceptance and appreciation is often times directly tied to our performance. This is especially true in the marketplace, or the sports world, where today's hero can be quickly become tomorrow's goat based on our latest performance. If we win, whether in business, sports or even love for that matter, we find ourselves receiving accolades and our feeling of self worth can temporarily be lifted. On the other hand, when we make a mistake or lose a deal, we are under considerable pressure, both internally and externally, not to let it happen again. We are living in a time when people love to tear others down. It is almost like some people feel better about themselves when they are critical of others shortcomings or failures. We all seek love in our lives and want to be accepted and appreciated. We are all striving for validation in some form or another. I spent many years of my life waiting for my earthly father to validate me as a man and tell me that he loves me and is proud of me. That day has never yet come. But thankfully, God's love for us is not like that. God's love is in no way tied to, or dependent on, our performance. Likewise, it is not dependent on our character or our behavior. There is nothing we can ever do that is good enough to have God love us anymore and likewise there is nothing so bad that would cause Him to love us any less. Because God is Love, we don't have to live our lives on a spiritual roller coaster that resembles the rest of our life. Because as the verse above tells us God is Love, He is the very essence of what that means. It is essential to His being. In other words, the Lord does not ever cease to love us because in order to do so He would have to cease being Himself. The guilt that we put on ourselves over our sins and bad deeds which paralyze us and can cause us to miss out on the great things He has planned for us, never translate into the God of the universe loving us any less. Because no one can ever live up to the perfect standards of love and grace that come from the Lord, if God's love were dependent on on our performance or character, a sense of of uncertainty and unworthiness would also be prevalent deep in our souls. That's the game that the devil likes to play with us, to try and get us to feel unworthy or unlovable based on our performance. he tries to make us have a worldly perspective on love rather than a Godly perspective. When we try to live up to the world's ever changing performance standards, there is no grace in living that way. We are quickly overcome by legalism and bondage as we strive to live up to all of the false expectations. But God's love is perfect and has no attachment to worldly expectations. His affections are not based at all on our worthiness, but rather on His unchanging character. Because He never changes, we never have to worry about His love being conditional. The Bible tells us so. It shows us the characteristics of God's love throughout the stories and the way Christ interacted with various people while He lived on earth. A few of those characteristics of His perfect love would include: It is perfect. It is eternal. It is immeasurable. It is sacrificial. It is incomprehensible. It is unique. It is unconditional. It is unending. It is constant. It never changes. And most importantly, it is practical. He gave us a road map for applying His love in practical terms in our own lives with how he dealt with people like Peter and Zaccheus and the Adulteress in John 8. These are just a few of the examples found in the Bible that show how He is always willing to forgive, to teach, to inspire, to rebuke, to encourage, to humble and to melt our fears away in His love. His love is the tool Jesus used to change people's lives. He loved them when the world said they were unlovable like Bartimaeus. He loved them when the world wanted to stone them to death for their sins like the adulterous woman in John 8. He loved them when they had forsaken Him, like Peter to the little servant girl. He loved them all the way to the cross. God's perfect love lived out in the flesh through Jesus Christ should help us to deal more practically with our sins and flaws. If He forgives us, why can't we forgive ourselves. More importantly, why can't we forgive others more easily when they sin against us? When I learned to let go of the hurt and pain caused by the lack of validation from my earthly father, and learned to try and forgive him in a way that Jesus forgives me, from the deepest part of my soul, there was such freedom that overcame me. Freedom like I had never experienced before. True freedom lies in forgiveness. True freedom lies in the comprehension of how perfect God's love is towards us. I have found the greatest love of all in my life in God through Jesus Christ. I pray that I will continue to learn how to share that love with others. It is an ever changing process with me, dealing with all of my human, imperfect emotions. My love and ability to love is imperfect in every way. Thank God that His love is not like mine. Amen!