Believe: LOVE

I am writing this on Valentine’s day! The Love holiday – right? Love is all about cupid, roses, cards, candy and kisses. Love must be the queasiness and stomach flip-flops she has when that certain guy walks by or the way he gets nervous with sweaty palms when she looks his way.
 
NOPE! That might be puppy love, or the flu or something in-between the two. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that love is in the room.
 
Love is a pleasant enough word in our language. Love can be used to describe our favorite food or our pets. Love can be used to describe how I feel about backpacking or a week in Florida. We can use the word love when we hear a certain type of music or to describe a poem that makes us smile. None of that is bad and love is an agreeable, enjoyable enough concept but I have a different perspective on love I want to deliver.
 
Love is ferocious.
Love is powerful.
Love is relentless.
Love pursues and pursues and pursues.
 
Love sticks to it.
Love rises up in the face of oppression.
Love conquers doubt.
Love overcomes failures.
 
Love gives and gives.
Love serves.
Love looks and…
Love sees others and it acts.
 
Love initiates.
Love promises and then keeps them.
Love continues.
Love completes.
 
Love laughs with the joyful.
Love weeps with the hurting.
Love joins with the lonely.
Love walks with the struggling.
 
The Bible tells us in 1 John 4.8 “God is love.” Since that is the case we must turn to God’s attributes and actions to truly understand what love is at its essence. The God of Scripture is all about bringing us back. The primary message of God’s Word is that He is relentless is His pursuit of redeeming us – buying us back to freedom. He will do whatever it takes to release us from our oppression of sin and death. God’s love sees us in our mess, our doubts and fears. Instead of casting us off – He enters in!
 
Try this on: Love is this – God dying on a cross with you on His mind. WOW!
 
10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.   I John 4
 
Love,
Pastor Nick