LoVe defined....

I was walking through Target today & was delighted to see the aisles of Valentine's Day cards all nicely placed in a row...just in time for January!

I know that the holiday itself represents alot of different things...but the theme of the holiday is love.

Isn't that something we all desire?

But do we believe it is possible. When you lie in bed at night, do you believe that you are really loved. It seems to me that when I was growing up, I had much more capacity to recieve love & to believe that I was loved because I had not hurt that many people, said that many dumb things, and I honestly was still oblivious to the fact that many people did not really care for me...heck, I was a kid & I saw the world with innocent eyes.

But for many of us, as we have grown older our hearts have slowly grown cold to the idea of actually being loved....and believing that we possess something that makes us valuable & worth being loved.

So what do we do? We got on a search for love. Perhaps we venture to find it in a girlfriend or boyfriend....from our peers...from our parents...from our boss....maybe even Fido? Problem is...none of those people (not even Fido) create or possess love solely. If we really want to find love, we've got to go to the source.

God is love.

This line in 1 John has always thrown me for a loop. I understand that God is good. But for God, in his very nature, to be love. That's...mind-blowing. The very One who knows everything about me....and yet He loves me....and He delights in me....and He desires me!

If we really want to know love at its core, we've got to come to know more of who God is.

I'll never forget the day in July '05 when I was walking to my car in the 105 degree Texas sun...there was a lady who was sitting on the metal railing by our parking lot at the church. She had her head down, dejected. I struck up a conversation with her & she began to tell me about how messed up she was because of all the bad decisions she had made. In the midst of pouring out to me she said, "I want to be loved...but in order to be loved, I got to be forgiven. In order to be forgiven I got to forgive myself first." The woman could not have been farther from the truth....

Love is not dependent on us. God's love flows freely to all who will open themselves up to it. His love flows regardless of our love.....it has no limits & it does not play favorites. There is absolutely nothing we can ever do that would ban us from being loved by God. We know this because of Jesus & what He did on the cross. When Christ stretched himself out & died for all of humanities screw-ups....He was basically saying, "I love you this much and more...". You've got to know that God is love....and His love never fails.

So if we really want to experience & know love....we need only to get to know God through our relationship with Him. The more we know of God, the more we know of His love. It is in that relationship....which happens in a community of people who are committed to knowing & experiencing God and His love....that we then know real love & are then capable of loving not only ourselves, but others....the way that we love ourselves...the way that God forever loves us.