Revolution: love

A while back, my church did a series called Your Church.    And in one sermon in particular, our pastor spoke of how churches today have turned into more of an institution because they are missing one thing:  love.  Now some may say that’s a little harsh, but I ask you to really marinate in thought with that for a minute.  I did and have to say that I believe it to be true.  So many people go through the motions today and aren’t really focused on what really matters which is living for God, loving God, loving one another.  God designed us to love, to be loved.  But today, there does seem to be a void for love.  Don’t you think?   After all, this series did start on the basis of us not loving ourselves enough to do something so simple like stepping in front of the camera rather than hiding behind it.  You can’t love yourself if you don’t have love to begin with.

We are starting to self-sooth by achieving, getting, producing, etc.  But does it ever really satisfy?  Kinda like a baby’s pacifier….. soothing for a while but there’s really no reward in the end for the baby or the mother.  At the end of the day, the pacifier eventually has to go away and what’s left?  A fussy baby looking for something else to self-sooth and a very exhausted mother.   As adults, we self-sooth with success, promotions, money, gadgets, etc. but when all is said and done we still need true love.  Still, we continue the cycle of self-soothing because we recognize we are broken.

So how do we fix it?  Easy.  Jesus.  He is the only remedy.

For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.  God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.  ~John 3:16-17

Trust that God truly loves us.  True, unconditional love in spite of our brokenness.  If you stop and think for a minute, doesn’t your heart long for that?  Love that is truly, madly, deeply unconditional?  Mine does.  I can’t imagine anything better.  True love casts out all fear.

But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.  ~Romans 5:8

If you miss love, you are nothing.

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.  If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.   ~1 Corinthians 13: 1-8a

 I don’t want to be nothing.  I am not nothing.

So now I am giving you a new commandment:  Love each other.  Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.  ~John 13:34

And remember, love is not earned.  It is given.  Freely.

Three things will last forever – faith, hope, and love – and the greatest of these is love.  ~1 Corinthians 13:13

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