What Manner part 1
Sometimes--a lot of the time... most of the time--I just think about love. I'm kind of obsessed with it. And the thing about love is... you can't really get to the bottom of it. One of my favorite passages of Scripture goes like this, "That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengtheed with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God" (Ephesians 3:16-19). To me... that's life. That's what its all about. That never ending life-long journey into the heart of the matter. Which is the heart. God's heart beating with love in our chests. So that we might know that we are loved, and love one another with that same love. Receive and release the gift we've been given. Receive it BY releasing it. Give away what we've got, and in that way experience it. And in experiencing it (one more time: by giving it away) we comprehend those dimensions of God's love. We test the height, and depth, and breadth, and length of His love when we love bigger and stronger than we ever thought we could. Look at what Jesus said in John 13:35, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." And the word "disciples" is number 3101 in Strong's Greek Concordance. It means, "a learner, that is, pupil." So a disciple of Christ is literally a student of love. Learning how to love by learning how we are loved. Which brings me back to where we started. Thinking about love. And what I want to say about love, today, is, "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:1-2). There's a lot there. And I want to spend the next few days unwrapping it. Digging into it. Exploring it. Because it is only when we understand what manner of love we are loved with, that we can begin to truly love one another with that love. And since that's the New Commandment (and the whole point of the whole thing), I think its important to begin to understand. And I know this was mostly just building the foundation, but I'm stuck on that phrase. "What manner." Kind of like how God SO loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. So that we might know that we ARE His Son(s). So that we might know Him as loving heavenly Father. I'm not saying anything against mom's, because if there was no mom there would be no you. And I'm not saying every dad is super dad. But this picture of a Father loving His Son is so powerful. I'll end tonight with a quote I like to use from a song I like to listen to. "Daddy's don't just love their children every now and then. Its a love without end. Amen." What manner of love? A love without end. A love that cannot--will not--fail. A love that lasts forever. A love you can trust. Depend on. Have faith in. What manner of love? Agape love. The God who IS love!