Day 94: His Name Is Called El Ahavah, The God Of Love
Read: 1John 4:7 - 21, 1Corinthians 13
The Beatles sang, “All you need is love, love, love is all you need.”
Back in August 1967, that was the number one hit song in the USA. In a
search of Amazon.com, it currently lists 368,049 results for books with
the word 'love' somewhere in the title. Doing a Google search for the
word 'love' yielded about 6,490,000,000 results in 0.40 seconds.
Obviously, 'love' is very important to our world culture, but equally
obviously it seems that with such a magnitude of available information
our culture has a poor understanding of love as well. Watch television,
check the internet, scan through your magazines, and you realize that by and large most people do not know what love is.
Love is about relationships, and to really understand love, we need to
think about the greatest possible relationship for a human being, a
relationship with God, El Ahavah, The God who is Love (1John 4:8 - 'The
person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love.') For
me, it is a sad and most regrettable testimony of our time that we are a
society entirely too dependent on 'contracts and conditions'. The
contracts basically say, “I will do this, if you do that.” They are
riddled with conditional commitments. If any of the conditions are not fully met, the
commitment is off. That is the way most people, not all, think about
relationships. Sadly, 'contracts and conditions' are all time limited as well.
But that is not the kind of relationship God has with us. God’s
relationship with us is unconditional and everlasting, meaning eternal,
gonna last forever, non contractual, love. God sets no limits on his
love; God does not love by rule or statue; God does not love piecemeal
or conditionally; God loves totally and completely, and that total love
opens God up to be hurt or rejected (John 11:35). If there is one
quality that best defines the One called El Ahavah, The God of Love,
if we took the time to seriously study and grasp His many attributes
and make them our own - it would remain love. In failure three things remain: faith, hope, and love. But the best one of these is love (1Corinthians 13:13.)
But God loves each of us with an infinite and perfect love. Can you
imagine then how it breaks his heart when we refuse him or fail to walk
his way. Please consider this very carefully, to strive to love someone
or something means that we believe we are prepared to take major league
risks that can result in either major league blessings or major league
hurts. El Ahavah, The God Of Love, who is Love, who should be our very first and very best love, took an incredible risk in creating us
with the freedom to accept or reject his offer of relationship. God's so
madly in love with us that he was willing to risk rejection over trying to coerce us into loving Him as He first loved us.
Let Us Pray: Father God, I come into your presence so aware of my human frailty and yet overwhelmed by your love for me. I thank you that there is no human
experience that I might walk through where your love cannot reach me.
If I climb the highest mountain you are there and yet if I find myself
in the darkest valley of my life, you are there. Teach me today to love
you more. Help me to rest in that love that asks nothing more than the
simple trusting heart of a child. In Jesus lovely name, Amen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2XTYQRw-0o
Read: 1John 4:7 - 21, 1Corinthians 13
The Beatles sang, “All you need is love, love, love is all you need.” Back in August 1967, that was the number one hit song in the USA. In a search of Amazon.com, it currently lists 368,049 results for books with the word 'love' somewhere in the title. Doing a Google search for the word 'love' yielded about 6,490,000,000 results in 0.40 seconds. Obviously, 'love' is very important to our world culture, but equally obviously it seems that with such a magnitude of available information our culture has a poor understanding of love as well. Watch television, check the internet, scan through your magazines, and you realize that by and large most people do not know what love is.
Love is about relationships, and to really understand love, we need to think about the greatest possible relationship for a human being, a relationship with God, El Ahavah, The God who is Love (1John 4:8 - 'The person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love.') For me, it is a sad and most regrettable testimony of our time that we are a society entirely too dependent on 'contracts and conditions'. The contracts basically say, “I will do this, if you do that.” They are riddled with conditional commitments. If any of the conditions are not fully met, the commitment is off. That is the way most people, not all, think about relationships. Sadly, 'contracts and conditions' are all time limited as well.
But that is not the kind of relationship God has with us. God’s relationship with us is unconditional and everlasting, meaning eternal, gonna last forever, non contractual, love. God sets no limits on his love; God does not love by rule or statue; God does not love piecemeal or conditionally; God loves totally and completely, and that total love opens God up to be hurt or rejected (John 11:35). If there is one quality that best defines the One called El Ahavah, The God of Love, if we took the time to seriously study and grasp His many attributes and make them our own - it would remain love. In failure three things remain: faith, hope, and love. But the best one of these is love (1Corinthians 13:13.)
But God loves each of us with an infinite and perfect love. Can you imagine then how it breaks his heart when we refuse him or fail to walk his way. Please consider this very carefully, to strive to love someone or something means that we believe we are prepared to take major league risks that can result in either major league blessings or major league hurts. El Ahavah, The God Of Love, who is Love, who should be our very first and very best love, took an incredible risk in creating us with the freedom to accept or reject his offer of relationship. God's so madly in love with us that he was willing to risk rejection over trying to coerce us into loving Him as He first loved us.
Let Us Pray: Father God, I come into your presence so aware of my human frailty and yet overwhelmed by your love for me. I thank you that there is no human experience that I might walk through where your love cannot reach me. If I climb the highest mountain you are there and yet if I find myself in the darkest valley of my life, you are there. Teach me today to love you more. Help me to rest in that love that asks nothing more than the simple trusting heart of a child. In Jesus lovely name, Amen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2XTYQRw-0o
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