Filled part 5
I want to make this as simple as I can: Love is the only thing that can satisfy our appetite. Love is the only thing that can truly fill us up. If you feel like you have a God-shaped (love-shaped) hole inside you... the only thing that will fit in the hole is God. Is love. Look at Proverbs 7:18, "Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves." And I think its important that it mentions filling ourselves until the morning. Because, lets be real, in the dark times, the dark of night so to speak, that's when we need love the most. It's easy to "love" people when everything is going well. But I always say the people who are hardest to love are the people who need love the most. Because they aren't getting any. Because they're hard to love. Love is not a feeling. Love is a decision. A decision to stand by someone no matter what. To give people what they need. Not necessarily always what they want... but I think the easiest and best way to love someone is to see a need, and meet it. If you have two coats, and someone doesn't have one... live out of your abundance and give them a coat. It's not rocket science. See a need and meet it. But the trick is, you can't give what you don't have. You can only give what you do have. So you need to fill yourself with love before you can love people. God has already filled us up. That happened. He took up abode in us. He lives in us. LOVE lives in us. So we have what we need. We are connected to the unlimited source of love. We have what we need. And because of that we can give people what THEY need. The Beatles said it best, "All we need is love." That is the universal human condition. We all need love. Love is to us like gas is to a car. We can't go anywhere or do anything without it. So the tragedy is, we waste so much of our lives--our three T's: Time, Talent, Treasure--trying to get something we already have. And we disqualify ourselves from experiencing it because we don't think we're worthy of it. We try to earn it, and we always fall short. Instead of just realizing that Jesus has prepared a table for us in the presence of our enemies. Jesus did all of the work. All of the heavy lifting. All we have to do is sit down and pig out. Stuff ourselves full of His love. When the Bible says, "God is love," the word love means "love feast." Because you are what you eat. What's inside comes out. And you fill yourself to overflowing with what you've already been filled with by eating the fruit. The fruit of the Spirit. So let's end this one where we started it tonight: Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning. When you need it the worst, you can have it. When it's darkest out, you can shine the light. You ARE the light of the world. The light of love shines on you, and in you, and through you, and out of you. So fill yourself up with it. When King David was in a rough spot he strengthened himself in the Lord. We can--and we need to--take solace in love. That's our refuge. Our safe place. That's where--and how--we fill ourselves up with what we've already been filled with. Its all about love. When you need it most... dive into it. Fill yourself with love!