Greater Love

What is love?

Not the mushy feeling of romantic love that come and goes like the tide.  Or the "we have fun together", friendly, spunk, non-committal love.
What is real, honest-to-goodness, last forever, kind of love?  The kind that you can shower on a child, or your husband, or any friend, or any stranger that will encourage them, strengthen them, make them all that they were meant to be?

Love is sacrifice.  "Greater love has no one than this: that to lay down one's life for his friends."   Sacrifice is costly. To be sacrifice it must be given without expectation of getting anything back.  I think we never truly understand love until we have poured ourselves out for someone who will not reciprocate.

Sure, we serve people. But have you ever stopped to question your own motives? Have you ever realized that deep down in the hiddenest place in your heart, the motive for serving people is often to gain their affection or their thanks?  I have.  That's not love.

I have loved the unlovely...but found it was relatively easy to love the unlovely when I knew they would respond with gratitude - even hero-worship. And so I plumped my ego to a terrific size by service as I gained back the praise of the people I helped. Then I woke up to the realization that I didn't really love THEM at all. I merely loved their love. Then I realized one thing more. I realized that I stopped loving people that I knew didn't care a straw for me.  I could love the unlovely, but I wouldn't love the ungrateful.  I realized I didn't really know love at all.

When Christ went to the cross, He opened His heart unreservedly for the world. He offered His blood for people He knew would never love Him back. Unreservedly. Without hesitation. He fed the crowds knowing those crowds would turn on Him.  He did not consider that miracle ill-placed. He loved Judas with an open heart knowing Judas would betray Him.  He did not consider that love wasted. He poured Himself out in service daily - hourly - for the people who would shout for Him to be crucified. He didn't look back on those days and hours with regret.
He didn't stop loving us when we didn't love Him. He didn't grow impatient in His love while He waited for us to respond to Him.  He just LOVED. Plainly, purely, simply, overwhelmingly, powerfully, astoundingly.

Love's definition is this: Give everything. Expect nothing. Forgive without limits.

Today, pour out your life in service to others. Not for praise or fame or to be well-respected by them. Not to gain friends or followers or loyal supporter. Serve with your words, with your actions, with your prayers. Sacrifice for the ungrateful, the unloving, the unworthy, the despicable. Sacrifice your spare time, and sacrifice the time you would have preferred not to spare. Serve in the Name of Jesus, to display His love to an ungrateful world.

That, my friends, is Love.

Jesus' Way

Is this the way my Jesus walked
This lonely, narrow lane?
If those footsteps in the dust are His
I'll gladly walk this way

Is that the way my Jesus looked
Love on His face, His eyes, His voice?
Then mercy permeate my every act
And compassion decide each choice

Where was it that my Jesus lived
The place He called His home?
If His country is Heaven, then so is mine
I'm content a stranger now to roam


How was it my Jesus talked
What sort of words were used?
If He spoke only the language of the Father
Then I yield my lips to truth

Is this the Temple my Jesus purged
To make it fit for prayer?
Then make me pure to my heart of hearts
That Your glory may abide in here

Is this the cross my Jesus bore
The weight of the Father's will?
I willingly kneel to accept my own
I'll follow Him up that hill

What Is Your Portion?

Are you satisfied?

Psalm 145:19 "He will fulfill the desire of all who fear Him."

All of us have desires, dreams and ambitions. Whether it be for an object, a relationship, a status, an achievement...
Often I have looked at scriptures like this and - though I would never have admitted it - I considered it a way to manipulate God. "If I love Him - if I fear Him, He'll give me what I want."
But today I looked at it different. I realized that what this is not saying that we'll have everything that we want right now.
It is saying that as we honor and revere and love the Lord - truly love Him from our hearts, and not just with lip service - He will become the fulfillment of every yearning of our hearts. He doesn't just satisfy a temporary longing, He reaches into the depths of our desires and satisfies the root, the core, the heart!

If you long for a relationship, He becomes your lover - and the best love anyone could ask for.
If you long for position, He gives you a place in His heart, in His family, in His story.
If you long for achievement, He will show you what counts for eternity.
If you long to be noticed, He shows you your own name written on His hand that He will never forget.

Oh, I know, sometimes life gets hard…hard because we have bought into the lie that says we have to strive for anything we want or we will never get it. Sometimes we get tired of waiting for the fulfillment of the promises of God…because we put more affection on the promise than we do on the Promise Maker.
Sometimes we get mad at the Lord because we think He has forgotten us, but in reality we are still cared for, still alive, still have access to salvation. He just doesn’t care so much about our priority list because He has one of His own that is infinitely better and eternally more perfect.

Are you satisfied with just your Lord and nothing more? If everything was stripped away and stolen from you (family, spouse, friends, job, responsibility, possession) would you still be satisfied. Or perhaps is your love a bit divided. Perhaps you love the Lord BECAUSE of all He's given you. I encourage you, do some searching...I had to, and I discovered how lacking my love was.

The age old question remains. Would you love Him if He took it all away and you were left with nothing but Him?

I ask you, what is YOUR portion?

Positioned for a Miracle

Do you ever feel that where you are right now is not compatible with where you are going?

Like a lame man looking up a sheer cliff face at his mountaintop destination?

It is curious to notice, though, that this is the place God puts His children in at least once in life. All of His best heroes have spent time in this spot.

And why?

Because this is the spot where we learn what faith is.  This is where we either give discouraged, throw in the towel, and never reach our potential...OR we lift our chin and ask, "I wonder what miracle God is planning here?"

You see, there's always a miracle.  In the exact right time, there is always the perfect miracle.

Look at Joseph. Years in prison - forgotten in prison - but one day the Pharaoh happened to have a dream, and his servant happened to hear of that dream, and that servant had happened to previously been in jail with Joseph, and he had happened to have a dream in prison, that Joseph had happened to interpret, and so the servant happened to tell the king of Joseph, and Joseph happened to be able to interpret Pharaoh's dream, so Pharaoh happened to make him second in command of all of Egypt, happening to fulfill a dream God had given Joseph years before.

Coincidence?

Or was God orchestrating every detail to perfection in Joseph's life so that at the peak time everything slipped effortlessly into place?

Maybe, right here in this uncomfortable place that seems so far from where you're going God is crafting a miracle.

And just maybe that miracle will change your life.

And it won't be coincidence.

But don't get impatient...the delay just means you haven't reached the perfect time yet.

Yet.

And you know what that means...

...it's means your miracle is still coming.