The greatest gift….

I'm posting this from my other site because it needs to be shared...y'all mind if I preach a little bit today....I'm just so full

 

People who know me, know that I like routine and structure: what can I say, I’m a creature of habit. This morning I did something a little different on my way in to work; instead of listening to my familiar songs on my radio I threw on some songs of gospel praise….and guess what? I started thinking about God’s love and How He demonstrates it to and for us and I began to just quietly cry at the magnitude and the spans of it all.

After I got my thoughts together I began to reflect on some ways that love was demonstrated and spoken of in my daily life. I once had someone tell me, in anger “Sometimes love is not enough!” I've had people say they “don’t understand it….”  I've seen domestic violence, comforted people who have been crushed by infidelity, spoken to people who were content with being in a position that compromises them and their integrity….I could go on but I believe you get the gist.

Now, let me first get into this by saying…I am by NO MEANS a saint, nor have I been without fault, flaw and shame on this subject of love. I used to pride myself in the fact that I NEVER cheated on anyone that I was involved with….I recently discovered that this is THE BIGGEST LIE I ever told myself. I cheated on my greatest love GOD! I allowed anything and everything to take me away from my redeemer and my sustainer. I was happy to give those titles to whomever and whatever had my heart. I now fully understand the Scripture Proverbs 4:23  Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

What I really want to talk about is: What if God treated love as cheaply and nonchalantly as we treat it? What if He subscribed to “love is not enough”? What if He was subject to serve based on how He felt? What if He had to know everything before He acted? – Jesus’ most human moment for me is when He is in the Garden of Gethsemane Matthew 26   …38 Then He said to them, "My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me."39 And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will." 40 And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour?

Two things happened in these three verses –

First:  Jesus showed His humanity.  In His human moment He spoke fear and lack of understanding…yet He resolved to operate in faith (the ultimate demonstration)

Second: The disciples demonstrated how we walk and yield to the flesh on a regular basis. How can you and why do we sleep when we know that we’re on the cusp of something epic? Why do we allow things to distract us?

If you’re unsure of what love is, and believe me we are so far off the path that we are recreating Sodom and Gomorrah, read 1 Corinthian 13

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

It’s a selfish act to tell someone how, when and why to love you………just be open to it, say thank you, reap the blessing and watch how your love will grow as a result.