Love God. Love People.

Okay, I've got to post some more thoughts on an excerpt from "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan.

If I haven't mentioned it before, this is a must read book.

"Is loving God-- and, by extension, loving people-- what you are all about? Is it what being a Christian means to you? Do you live as though faith, demonstrated through love, really is the only thing that counts?

There is often a great disparity between how we feel about faith and how we are meant to feel. Why do so few people genuinely find joy and pleasure in their relationship with God? Why do most people feel they have to either pay God back for all He's done (buy His love) or somehow keep making up for all their inadequacies and failures (prove their love)? Why are the words of Psalms 63:1-5 not an honest reflection of our lives on most days?"

Go get your bible. Open it up to Psalms 63:1-5 and read it.

That passage was the deepest desire of David's heart displayed in words. He was in the wilderness of Judah, separated from the sanctuary in Jerusalem, worshipping and crying out to God. David had experienced a taste of God's love and desperately sought more.

I want my heart to always seek God's love with that passion.

I struggle with the concept of love. Love has so many definitions and meanings-- not one truly describes the love that God has for us. His love is impossible to fathom in the human mind. Sometimes I think that is how God intended it to be. If we could truly understand it, then we could analyze it and place conditions on it.

We try to apply the same criteria of our love for others to our love for God. In the world we live in today, our love for others is very conditional, even in the realm of marriage and family. Divorce is everywhere-- do you not think those people loved each other at one time?

I think this failure of love in our culture is leading to a misunderstanding of God's love. We place conditions on His love for us. We hear things like, "I've made to many mistakes for God to ever love me" or we put our energy into useless tasks in order to earn God's love.

Francis goes on to say, "...the solution isn't to try harder, fail, and then make bigger promises, only to fail again. It does no good to muster up more love for God, to will yourself to love Him more. When loving Him becomes obligation, just one of the many things we have to do, we end up focusing even more on ourselves. No wonder so few people want to hear from us about what we ourselves feel is a boring, guilt ridden-chore!"

One of the best parts about God's love (and most misunderstood) is that God doesn't expect us to have it all together. He wants us, as messed up and dirty as we are.

"He wants to change us; He died so that we could change. The answer lies in letting Him change you. Remember His counsel to the lukewarm church in Laodicea? "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me" (Rev. 3:20) His counsel wasn't to 'try harder' but rather to let Him in."

It's funny, I just spent 45 minutes thinking through this and writing it out when the answer is to simply "let Him in." That's how God works, that's an example of His love. He doesn't care that we don't understand everything.

He only asks that we make ourselves available to Him so that He can do the work needed in our hearts to grow our love for Him.

I'll close with this last section from the book, "The fact is, I need God to help me love God. And if I need His help to love Him, a perfect being, I definitely need His help to love other, fault-filled humans. Something mysterious, even supernatural must happen in order for genuine love for God to grow in our hearts. The Holy Spirit has to move in our lives."

I hope this post makes sense. It's getting kinda late and there are a lot of things going through my mind. Darn it, now I'm not going to be able to go to sleep anytime soon. No more posts after 9:00. : )