Thursday, February 23, 2012

February 24, 2012

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”  I John 4:7-11
The Beatles stumbled into it, sort of, when they sang, “All we need is love. Love is all we need.”


We DO need love! We were created for it and wired for it and we long for it and we suffer when we don’t have it.


As kids, we found it easy to sing “Jesus loves me this I know” and we meant it! But now it seems so complicated! Why is love so hard? And why is it so hard to love God as we should? How is it we struggle to receive Him love?


In short, I think the answer lies in two words, “sin” and “synthetic”.


When you willfully sin it separates you from God and His love. You long for that love but in your sinful, selfish state, you tend to look for it in all the wrong places. Since sin separates and alienates you from God you make bad decisions that complicate your life and your relationships. Each time you do it erects more barriers between you and the real love God wants you to have!


Finding love in the wrong places and for the wrong reasons results in “synthetic” love – a poor imitation of the real thing. Synthetic love doesn’t satisfy and leaves you more lonely and frustrated and feeling unloved. After awhile you begin to feel unlovable – to God and everyone else. Once you allow yourself to believe you are unlovable you will begin to find ways to prove how unlovable you are! As long as you settle for synthetic love, it is all you will have. You can’t receive His crazy love because of your brand of crazy love.


Sadly, while you are locked in this downward spiral of sin and synthetic love, God continues to love you with His huge, holy and forever love! He longs for you to receive that love and live in that love and give that love to others! So, He will keep sending the beautiful sunrises and sunsets and rainbows and harvest moons and Spring blossoms until you remember there is a better love.

Are you ready for some CRAZY LOVE? Are you so tired of the synthetic stuff and hungry for the real thing? Is it time to confess your sin and receive the Son?


When HIS love is all you need, He has more than you need! He has a world of love! In fact, He has a whole universe of real, sincere, holy, powerful, healing, satisfying, godly love!