Love - How Are We Doing?

Have you noticed a theme recently? The last few posts have been about love. I didn't even notice this at first. I feel like I have been learning a lot of stuff and have been writing about it, and it all comes back to love. That makes sense though. That is basically the theme of the whole bible, and that is what God is, so it makes sense that so much rotates around it.

Okay, on we go to today's post and big question:

How well are we doing at loving God?

I don't mean that in a scale of 1 to ten, am I doing better than you or any competitive sort of way. So written in better words:

How much do you love God?

Is He most important to you? Is He first in your life? Do you love Him more than anyone or anything?

Francis Chan said something like this in the book Crazy Love: We need God's help to love Him more.  (I couldn't find the exact quote, but that is gist of it)

Honestly though, I don't act like I love God very much some days and I don't like it. I'm sure I'm not the only one though, so let's do something about this! Because I know that it's just not me. And yes, it does take time to fall in love with someone, but let's keep our eyes fixed on Him and ask Him to change our desires so that He is our greatest desire. Not with a lazy passivity, but actually make a decision that even when we don't feel like it, even when our attitudes and feelings don't reflect Him, that we consciously chose to still pursue Him and what He wants.

And as that quote illustrates, He can help us with that, but it requires effort on our part too.

Just a friendly post to say....

Hello :)

If you're reading this blog I'd love to get to know you a little. Most of my writing thus far has been to get the words out of my head and maybe, hopefully help someone. I would like it to be more interactive though, to start getting to know people in the blogging world and those that read here.

People are so important, so if you're a person, obviously that means that you are important :)

Why? Simply because God created you, and I know that my God doesn't make useless things.

So, feel free to read, comment, send me a message if you have a question or just need a friend. I'm going to try and reach out to other bloggers, read and learn from them and interact, cause thus far I've mostly been a consumer of other blogs, not interacting at all, but we, as a people, a community, are stronger. There is so much that we can all learn from each other and encouragement is also always great!

I think that is something people in general just need though, people to encourage, push, and love them.

That's what we're all craving isn't it? Love in one form or another. Love is awesome, and should push us to pursue the one that is love!

So let's encourage each other. Let's all push each other to be loving and in love with God.

The memory verse for Junior Youth last week was:

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17 (I had to look up the reference. Whoops. Still got some memory work to do).

I think that is a great description of what I am wanting to get across in this post and create around this blog.

Let me know what you think!

Shendl

Don't Love To Be Loved

I like clothes with words on them. I like the extra expression it gives, but it all depends on what the words are. A few weeks ago I was walking trough the mall with a friend and saw a lady wearing a t-shirt that said:

Love to be loved

I guess there are two ways to take this saying. 

I love being loved, because it does feel good. It is awesome to have those around us that love us and also to have an amazing God that loves us so much.

Or it could mean Love others to get love. That is not a good sentiment and is not biblical at all. If we just look at the example we have been given, even from one of the most shared bible verses, John 3:16: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Jesus died for us when we were still sinners and not at all loving towards Him. It is an unconditional love in the purest sense, because even if we don't ever choose to love God He's already done so much for us! Even giving you life and free will is an amazing act of love, even if you don't agree. 

So my challenge is to love those that are hard to love. To show love to even those that won't ever give you the love back, because aren't we wanting to become more like Jesus? Aren't we wanting to show love to those around us even though it isn't always pleasant? You won't necessarily ever know what that love shown will mean to someone that hasn't experienced much love. I think that love can soften many world hardened hearts. To someone that has always been roughly dealt with by the world, someone showing them undeserved love won't make sense and will make them question what makes you different. 

And that could be an amazing opportunity to introduce them to our God :) 

We can't outlove God

  

He saw us made, saw us being formed, knows our thoughts and made us so intricately amazing. Just think of of your body and thoughts. Just thinking of how I'm using my fingers, these appendages that were so little when I was born, to type this out by hitting keys and knowing in my head how to combine those actions in order to create something that makes sense and that you will use your amazingly formed eye to read, it's weird.

Psalm 139 talks so beautifully of how we were created, "You knit me together"; how we are known, "You know me", "You know when I sit and when I rise", "You are familiar with all my ways". Why would God even care to know us so well? He could have just created us and stuck us on this earth to go about and watch us in our stupidity. But He loves us too much for that. "You hem me in behind and before."

He loved us since before we were born, but the weird part about this is we aren't even nice. We aren't good, we don't show Him the love that He deserves. "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.  For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—  but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." - Romans 5:6-8

While we were still sinners. When we did what God hated without a second thought, when we didn't love Him or know Him. He loved us. I've seen this rephrased as: You loved me at my darkest. Which is amazing cause how many people would love us when we are "at our darkest", when we have nothing to bring and aren't being loving or easy to love. At that time, in that state, Jesus died for us, even though we might never love Him back. 

"He loved us not because we were loveable, but because He is love." C.S. Lewis

We can't earn this love. And we can't do anything to deserve it. When we mess up and come back repentant, He's still there loving us. It doesn't change how He feels. It doesn't change who He is. He will always outlove us, and that is amazing. 

Why I don't believe in love at first sight

A few years ago there was an email going about my friend circle with a number of questions. One of these questions was: "Do you believe in love at first sight?" I don't remember what I answered, but at the time I wasn't sure. It wasn't something I had given much thought.
A few years later and I know that I don't - not in a romantic way anyway - in most cases. Perhaps there are those exceptions and extraordinary times when people meet for the first time and just know that this is the person they are going to get married, but in general I don't think love at first sight happens. Here's why:

There's more to a person than looks
Can you really see someone and just know that you will be happy with them? That they are a nice person and that you have enough similarities and dissimilarities to be together for the rest of your life?

How you see a person changes
Perhaps this is just me, but the first time I see someone they physically look different to how they do after I have gotten to know them. I guess this is because as you get to know people you notice and appreciate different things about them. The flaws become less obvious and you look for the beautiful eyes you noticed or the pretty smile that makes them look even more lovely. A few years ago someone said something about a friend's physical appearance and when I thought about it it was there, but I had ceased to notice it.

Love
Love at first sight is linked to eros, one of the greek words for love. It is a passionate love. One explanation that I read says that: "Though Eros is directed towards another, it actually has self in mind. For example: “I love you because you make me happy.”" Eros has to do with emotions. Emotions change. There are other loves (the greek had many words for love) that also need to be present.
Maybe a marriage that is started on eros can survive by developing the others, but if not, it probably won't last long.

I think a lot of what makes you like people is their personality. Their humour, their idiosyncrasies, the way they treat you and the way they act. It takes time to get to know them and to learn and appreciate these things about them.

If "love at first sight" is all you have to go on, you're only looking at what you see when you first meet them. Yes, this is a part of them, but is it enough to know that you are in love with them and will love them for the rest of your life?