Who do you love?

Readings for today: 1 John 1-2, Psalms 36

Who do you love? It’s a really important question. It’s a defining question. Perhaps THE defining question of our lives. If we love God, then we will live our lives according to His ways. We will follow in His footsteps. We will love what He loves. We will love who He loves. We will love to love. Love to serve. Love to give. Love holiness and righteousness. But if we love ourselves or we love the world, our ability to love will be limited. It will be limited to those who think like us and act like us and agree with us and look like us. It will be limited to those who please us, affirm us, support us, encourage us. It will be limited to those who meet our needs and help us achieve our wants and desires. It will be a utilitarian kind of love. An erotic kind of love. A selfish kind of love because it will revolve around our own love of Self rather than our love for God.

The Apostle John clearly articulates this distinction in his first letter. “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s possessions — is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does the will of God remains forever.” (1 John‬ ‭2‬:‭15‬-‭17‬ ‭CSB) John understands the temptation we all ultimately face. It’s the temptation to love something or someone other than God. It’s the temptation to love the temporal over the eternal. To love the finite over the infinite. To love selfishly rather than selflessly. These loves cannot exist simultaneously. They cannot co-exist peacefully. They cannot occupy the same space in the same heart. One naturally drives out the other. One naturally conflicts with the other. One naturally pushes against the other. Love the world and the love of the Father is not in you. Love the Father and the love of the world is not in you. Pursue the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life and the love of the Father is not in you. Offer you body as a living sacrifice, do not covet or give a foothold to greed, and crucify the ego and the love of the world will have no hold on you. This is the key to the Christian life.

Human beings were created to and for love. We were created to love God. Created to love each other. Created to love the world and all God has made. Sadly, we chose to love Self over God and the result was alienation, brokenness, pain, heartbreak, division, separation. And what flows from this rupture is anger, hatred, bitterness, and violence. Without the love of God, everything falls apart, for only God’s love is powerful enough to hold it all together. God’s love is holy, righteous, and just. God’s love is faithful, noble, and true. God’s love is patient and kind and good. God’s love overlooks a multitude of sins. God’s love covers a multitude of sins. God’s love endures a multitude of sins. God’s love eventually overcomes a multitude of sins. God’s love can bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things because God’s love never fails. It never fails because it springs from a divine source. It flows from a divine well. It is the gift of God Himself.

I don’t know about you but I want this love in my life. I want to wrap my life around this love. I want my life to be defined by this love. I want to love like God. And if that’s your desire as well, I encourage you to pray this prayer or something like it, Father, how I long to love like you. How I long to have my life wrapped around your love. To love so well and so selflessly and so sacrificially that my entire existence becomes defined by it. There is nothing like your love. Your love gives me the power to serve. Your love offers me the joy of giving myself away for the sake of others. Your love drives me to the ends of the earth to make you known. Your love keeps me going back over and over again to hard and difficult places and spaces and conversations and relationships. Your love compels me. Your love constrains me. Your love sets boundaries around me. Your love informs me. Your love guides me. I have never regretted loving you or loving others. I have never regretted putting all I have into love. I have been hurt, yes. I have been betrayed, yes. I have been attacked, yes. I have been put down, yes. I have been dismissed and ignored, yes. I have been all those things but I have never regretted, not for a second, the choice to love. Thank you, Father, for giving me a heart to love.

Readings for tomorrow: 1 John 3-5, Psalms 37

The Love of God

Readings for today: Song of Solomon 5-8, Psalms 12

There is nothing like the love of God. No force in the universe is as powerful. Not gravity. Not electromagnetism. Not the strong or weak nuclear forces that hold together the atom. Not the laws of quantum physics or thermodynamics. God’s love is the connective tissue that holds all space and time and matter together. It is the animating force for all of life. Everything that has breath. Everything that crawls on the earth or swims in the sea or flies in the air. Every person on earth. All of it held together by the love of God. God’s love is the operating system of all of life. It is both the hardware and the software off which everything runs. It operates in the background and the foreground. It is both tangible and intangible. Concrete and incorporeal. Expressive and ineffable. And there may not be a better description of it than what’s written here at the end of the Song of Solomon…

“Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death; jealousy is as unrelenting as Sheol. Love’s flames are fiery flames  — an almighty flame! A huge torrent cannot extinguish love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If a man were to give all his wealth for love, it would be utterly scorned.” (Song of Songs‬ ‭8‬:‭6‬-‭7‬ ‭CSB‬‬)

Imagine how your life would change if you truly believed and walked in the love described here by Solomon. Imagine if you believed God had set you as a seal on His heart and arm. Imagine if you believed God’s love for you transcended death and Hades. Imagine if you believed God’s love for you was fierce and jealous. Imagine you believed God’s love for you could never be lost or expire or be extinguished, no matter what you said or did. Imagine if you believed God’s love could not be bought or earned but was a gift of grace. How would it change your life? How would it change how you lived? How would it change the relationships in your life? How would it change how you spent your time and money and energy? Imagine how different things would be for you if you tapped into this unquenchable, inexhaustible love every single day?

Readings for tomorrow: Jeremiah 1-3, Psalms 13 (No devotionals on Sundays)

Relationship with God

Readings for today: Song of Solomon 1-4, Psalms 11

For centuries, both Jewish and Christian interpreters of the Song of Solomon understood it as an allegorical poem depicting the love God has for His people. A love that is deep and intimate. A love that is stronger than death. Perhaps this is why the Song of Solomon is read during Passover each year. Passover is the celebration of the seminal event in Israel’s history, the deliverance of Israel from bondage in Egypt. Because of His steadfast, faithful, covenantal love, God acted within human history to set His people free. We celebrate a similar act of salvation at the Lord’s Table which is why some Christian traditions read the Song of Solomon whenever they eat the bread and drink the cup. They are honoring the God’s eternal, unchangeable, relentless love for His people. A love that will never let us go. A love that holds us together when everything else in this world is tearing us apart.

Yes, I know it sounds strange to our 21st century, post-modern, Western ears. We read the Song of Solomon and almost blush at the graphic imagery. We are uncomfortable with the sexual connotations and struggle to understand how this book could depict anything other than the erotic love a man has for a woman. It feels almost unholy to suggest otherwise. But this attitude only serves to underscore how little we understand about the love of God and the kind of relationship God wants with us. God wants a relationship that is deep and intimate with His people. He wants us to look forward with anticipation to the time we get to spend with Him. He wants us to be filled with longing for His presence in our lives. He wants us to search for Him earnestly until we find Him. Listen again to the words of the poem…

“Oh, that he would kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your caresses are more delightful than wine. The fragrance of your perfume is intoxicating; your name is perfume poured out. No wonder young women adore you. Take me with you  — let’s hurry. Oh, that the king would bring me to his chambers.” (Song of Songs‬ ‭1‬:‭2‬-‭4‬ ‭CSB‬‬)

“Listen! My love is approaching. Look! Here he comes, leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills. My love is like a gazelle or a young stag. See, he is standing behind our wall, gazing through the windows, peering through the lattice. My love calls to me: Arise, my darling. Come away, my beautiful one.” (Song of Songs‬ ‭2‬:‭8‬-‭10‬ ‭CSB‬‬)

“In my bed at night I sought the one I love; I sought him, but did not find him. I will arise now and go about the city, through the streets and the plazas. I will seek the one I love. I sought him, but did not find him. The guards who go about the city found me. I asked them, “Have you seen the one I love?” I had just passed them when I found the one I love. I held on to him and would not let him go until I brought him to my mother’s house  — to the chamber of the one who conceived me.” (Song of Songs‬ ‭3‬:‭1‬-‭4‬ ‭CSB)

Doesn’t it change how you hear it? How you read it? How you understand it? With this frame of mind, listen to how God describes His beloved. How He describes His people. How He describes you and me.

“I compare you, my darling, to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots. Your cheeks are beautiful with jewelry, your neck with its necklace…How beautiful you are, my darling. How very beautiful! Your eyes are doves.” (Song of Songs‬ ‭1‬:‭9‬-‭10‬, ‭15‬ ‭CSB‬‬)

“Arise, my darling. Come away, my beautiful one. For now the winter is past; the rain has ended and gone away. The blossoms appear in the countryside. The time of singing has come, and the turtledove’s cooing is heard in our land. The fig tree ripens its figs; the blossoming vines give off their fragrance. Arise, my darling. Come away, my beautiful one. My dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the crevices of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.” (Song of Songs‬ ‭2‬:‭10‬-‭14‬ ‭CSB‬‬)

“You are absolutely beautiful, my darling; there is no imperfection in you.” (Song of Songs‬ ‭4‬:‭7‬ ‭CSB‬‬)

Imagine how it would change you if you truly believed these things about yourself. Imagine how it would change you if you truly saw yourself as God sees you. Beautiful. Perfect. Beloved. Can you not see why God desires to have a relationship with you? Why He takes great delight in you? Why He has lavished on you every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places? God is deeply in love with you. He is eternally committed to you. He will never leave you or forsake you. He has your name graven on His hand and written on His heart and He will not rest until you, His beloved, turns and embraces Him with all your heart.

Readings for tomorrow: Song of Solomon 5-8, Psalms 12

The Overwhelming Love of God

Readings for today: 1 Chronicles 6, Psalms 36, 39, 77, 78

I love how Eugene Peterson translates Psalm 36 in his paraphrased version of the Bible called The Message. “God’s love is meteoric, his loyalty astronomic, His purpose titanic, his verdicts oceanic. Yet in his largeness nothing gets lost; Not a man, not a mouse, slips through the cracks. How exquisite your love, O God! How eager we are to run under your wings, To eat our fill at the banquet you spread as you fill our tankards with Eden spring water. You’re a fountain of cascading light, and you open our eyes to light.” (Psalms‬ ‭36‬:‭5‬-‭9‬ ‭MSG‬‬) Isn’t that great? There’s just nothing like the love of God. We sing about it. We pray over it. We rest in it. We preach on it. We trust in it. It is literally the most powerful, life-transforming force in the universe.

Love is perhaps the most abused word in the English language. We throw it around all the time. Use it describe our desire for mundane things like different foods or activities or material possessions. We definitely use it to describe our connection to people as well but even there it gets a bit confused. When some people use the word “love”, they are speaking of something overtly sexual in nature. When others use the word “love”, they are talking more about friendship or companionship. Still others use the word “love” to describe an emotion so deep, it drives us to make huge sacrifices even to the point of laying down our lives. It is this last description of “love” that best fits the love God demonstrates for us on the cross. A love that would not let us go. A love that will not let us down. A love that never fails for it rests on a Savior who never fails.

Surely, there is nothing greater than the love of Christ for lost sinners like you and me? Nothing more amazing than His grace? Nothing as deep as His compassion? If you want to measure the width of the love of God, look to the outstretched hands of Jesus. If you want to measure the heights of the love of God, look to Jesus as He’s lifted up on the cross. If you want to measure the depth and the breadth of the love of Jesus, consider what He did in offering His perfect life to make atonement for the sins of the world. Reflect on the price He paid to secure our salvation. Consider the fact that God did not spare His own Son but sent Him to be a sacrifice for our sins. This is the love of God and it is indeed “meteoric”, “astronomic”, “titanic”, and “oceanic.”

Readings for tomorrow: None