Love

It has been a really long time since I have written anything at all on here, and there are many reasons for that.
I have been insanely busy with school, basketball has started once again, and God has been teaching me a million things. He is in the process of changing old thinking habits and old things and making them new and transformed and different.

One of the biggest things that He has been teaching me recently has been about love, and it is incredibly difficult to express.
For a really long time I have been struggling with the complexity of life. I have wondered if I am going the right direction, or doing the things that I need to. I have worried many times if I was missing something, missing a path, missing something along the journey. But I have recently realized that this way of thinking is very selfish, and very far from God's reality.
In the New Testament, God gives us two basic commands. And those commands are to Love...to love God with EVERYTHING, and to love your neighbor exactly like you love yourself.
As a Christian in America, I have heard these words a million times, but when I get down to the facts, these two commands may really not be a reality in my life.

I tend to love God with some of my heart...but I don't want to give away everything.
And I tend to love myself and look out for myself above all else, and not give very much consideration to others. In fact, my default position is to love myself and not love God or others. Unless I consciously seek God and His help, I pretty much completely fail at loving God with my whole heart and loving others like I love myself.

I quickly find that when I start loving rightly, everything else falls into place.
In fact, once I realize that life is all about love, the complexity of life totally disappears.
I stop worrying about what "path" God wants me to go down, or worrying about what happens if I happen to miss something along the way. Because of this very important idea..."no matter where I go in life, if I love the way God intends, nothing else matters."

When I begin to love Jesus with everything, and love others as myself, everything else fades away.
Jesus becomes everything I need...which He is! He is everything I will ever ever need.
And the importance of everything else, of money, of relationships, of fame, status, etc...all of those things, get put in their proper places.
Life is constantly a battle. And it seems that many of these battles come down to the way we love. Do we love rightly? Biblically? The way God intended? Or do we love selfishly? Like Americans? Like American Christians?

I recently read the book "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan.
And there are so many things that I could write about that book.
But I will summarize.

The Gospels basically say that in order to be a follower of God we must give EVERYTHING away. God wants us...and He wants ALL of us. Even the messy parts.
He wants the parts we don't want to give away easily. He wants the things that we may be ashamed about, or not want to part with.
He told the rich man to go and give away all of his money and then He could follow Jesus...but the rich man didn't want to do it. And He said it was easier for a donkey to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven.

I had always known about that passage...but that passage scared the living daylights out of me.
Many times I don't think of myself as rich....but I am so filthy rich compared to the rest of the world. Every single Christian in America is filthy rich compared to the rest of the world.
And most of us I fear, don't understand that.

We don't really have to give up anything to be an "American Christian."
We can do all the right things, say the right things, go to Church on Sundays, and give 10 percent...but is this wholehearted devotion to the God of the Universe?
When Jesus says give everything, but we give 10 percent, are we really loving Him and doing what He says?
Do we love Him enough to do what He says?
Or do we love ourselves so much that we keep as much as we can?
See the battle of love there? Everything comes down to love.

It talks about how the Gospel changes everything.
And when Jesus comes into someone's life, He radically transforms them!
He moves in to a home and He clears out the old and makes all things new!
But!
It sadly seems...
that for many Christians, we just tack God on to our lives. We fit Him in wherever it's convenient, or easy, or safe. We fit Him in when we like it...and leave Him out when we don't like it.

As Pastor Mike has been talking about in Church...
"People want a Savior...they just don't want a Lord, or a King, or a Master.
They want their needs met, but they don't want someone who is going to make any claims on their life or tell them what they can or can't do."

Do we love Jesus enough to do what He says?
Do we love Him? Do we show it?
Do we love rightly? Or do we love ourselves?
Is He enough? Is He everything? Will we give everything away for Him?


Everything that we do is a reflection of the way that we love. When we buy something, it is a reflection of what we love. When we talk to someone, the things we talk about are a reflection of our hearts, and a reflection of the things we love. What we think about is a reflection of what we love. Our love can be wrong or it can be right. It can be selfish, or it can be selfless.
Many Americans view love as a selfish thing...it's what they can get out of something.
But the Gospel changes all of this...Jesus is the ultimate picture of love...and it is completely and fully selfless.
And this kind of love, is the love that God tells Christians to have.
We are to love like Christ loved!
What a great picture He has given us!
And what a tremendous challenge He has set before us.
I must confess that often, I do not love like Christ.
I tend to want to love myself...to think of myself...but I cannot do this!
I must seek and strive to love as Christ loved! and to get rid of anything that stands in the way of that.

Loving like this will never be safe.

Britt Nicole has a song called "Safe" - and some of the lyrics are here.

I'm so tired of turning and running away
When love just isn't safe.


Love will never be safe...or easy. But it's the way that we must love!
We must break down the walls and begin to love like God intends.
It may go against everything in American culture, but we must love rightly, and love selflessly.

Britt Nicole asks - If everything comes down to love, then just what am I afraid of?

I fear that many of us do not understand that life comes down to love.
Whether or not we understand it doesn't change the fact that love drives every single action we make.
And love comes out of the heart.
Everything comes down to love...and everything comes down to the heart.

My Spiritual Formation teacher from Cedarville University recently spoke in Chapel.
He was talking about the heart...and this is what he says.
(Edward is a reference to the character Edward from "Sense and Sensibility.)

"Too often like Edward, we shrink from commitment and devotion to the Lord.
We treat God as a casual friend rather than our hearts deepest desire.
We leave God lingering and waiting, His love for us all the while, unrequited.

But all the while, His love keeps reaching out to us seeking to draw us into genuine intimacy with Him. His stubborn love keeps pursuing us even as we flirt with so many other attractions. Even as we give our hearts to so many lesser things.
The heart of the matter is a matter of the heart.
Our commitment to the Lord must be this, “unite my heart to fear His Name.”
He will only be satisfied, and I will only be satisfied when I can say, my heart is, and always will be, Yours. Because the heart of the matter is, the matter of our heart."


God calls us to love like He loves.
And we will only be satisfied when we love Him with our entire hearts. Nothing else, will ever ever satisfy. Only my beautiful and loving Savior can do such a thing.
Jesus only You can satisfy.


only You satisfy.
only You can fill my deepest need
if You take everything else away,
You will still be everything I need.


The One that made the stars and fashioned the galaxies is God and God alone.
He sent His son because of love.
Jesus came and humbled Himself and died a cruel death because of love.
He rose from the grave, He conquored death, and He is seated at the right hand of God the Father.
He is the ultimate picture of love. He is love. He is the great lover.
We are to love like Him.
And He is still in the business of loving sinners and transforming them into His children.
It is a beautiful picture. It is a picture of love greater than I can fully comprehend.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

Jesus invites sinners to come to Him and find life, and find salvation. Jesus alone saves. He alone is the one who saves sinners, and gives them eternal life. Salvation is found in no other.

John 7:37 - "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink."

John 4:13,14 - "Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. 14 But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”


Love Never Fails by Brandon Heath

Love is not proud
Love does not boast
Love after all
Matters the most

Love does not run
Love does not hide
Love does not keep locked inside

Love is the river that flows through
Love never fails you

Love will sustain
Love will provide
Love will not cease
At the end of time

Love will protect
Love always hopes
Love still believes
When you don’t

Love is the arms that are holding you
Love never fails you

When my heart won’t make a sound
When I can’t turn back around
When the sky is falling down
Nothing is greater than this
Greater than this

Love is right here
Love is alive
Love is the Way
The Truth the Life

Everything by Lifehouse

You're all I want You're all I need.
You're everything, everything
You're all I want You're all I need, you're everything, everything.

Jesus You are everything.