Show Love part 3
Today I want to focus on something that I think we really misunderstand. And that is the relationship between Creator and creation. We seem to think that in order to show love, we have to PROVE our love. Like Peter when he swore up and down that he would never deny Jesus. Well, we all know how that turned out. He ended up denying Jesus three times. See, it's like we think we have to hold onto God. As if He's trying to get away or something. When in fact, the exact opposite is true. In the garden of Eden it was MAN who hid from the presence of God. And it was God who swore to never leave us nor forsake us. We think we need to hold onto Him... when really it is God (love) who will never let us go! Look at our key verse from this Rant series: "Be careful to obey all these commands I am giving you. Show love to the LORD your God by walking in his ways and holding tightly to him" (Deuteronomy 11:22 NLT). Which seems to say the opposite of what I'M trying to say. Seems to. Because when we look at the Old Testament cross-eyed we see Jesus in every verse. We see LOVE in every verse. Holding tightly to God... is holding tightly to love. And the way you hold love tight... is by giving it away. Because love IS giving. In order to experience the love of God we must receive it AND release it. We must let His perfect love cast out all fear. The fear of losing what we've got. Or the fear that what we have to give isn't good enough. Or whatever other fear we can think of. We can let those fears go. Because--and I think Princess Leia said it best in Star Wars--the tighter we grip, the more it slips through our fingers. The more we focus on how much we love God... the more we miss how much HE loves us. And THAT is the point. When God was in Christ on the cross, reconciling the world to Himself, He brought us back to our first love. Which is HIS love. We love, because He first loved us. The focus can't be on ourselves. It must be on Him. That's the difference between being self-centered, and Christ-centered. And with the understanding that we love God BY loving each other, we begin to see that being Christ-centered is being people-centered. So holding tightly to Him really means holding tightly to each other! And not in the sense of being clingly, or trying to restrict others. Not in the sense of trying to control others. But in the sense of, "It's ok. I've got you. And I won't let go. Even if you stumble, even if you fall, I'm right here with you." It's not about condemning people, or piling on. It's not about kicking people when they're down. It's about showing love. Unconditional love. The kind of love that makes people run TO it--run to GOD--instead of running FROM it. It sickens me that people have such a negative attitude about church. But at the same time... I get it. Because we haven't done a very good job of making the church inviting. We seem a lot more willing to cast people out than to actually accept them. And when we judge other people for doing the same things we're doing... then it doesn't surprise me that "Christians" have gained quite the reputation as hypocrites. We need to show love. We need to hold tight to each other, even while we give each other room to learn and grow. We need to stop thinking that we have to hold on to God or we'll lose Him. And we need to realize that He will NEVER let us go!