Jesus + Us = Love

True love, showing it not only on the outside but also on the inside, requires greatness. Love stories from movies are not what true love is about, I'm sorry to break it to you.

"But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him." -Isaiah 53:5-6

That is nothing less than true love.

Someone mentioned something today that made me think about how I see Jesus. He is not just another thing for us to acquire. He is the God of the universe. The very One that made us!

Any of you that have ever been in love know how it feels to want to spend all the time possible with that special someone. The question that God has brought to my mind through the past few days is this: How often do I truly desire to spend time with HIM? Do I have to make myself go read my bible because I "know it's what I'm supposed to do" or do I hunger for His word and presence?

"Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted." -Isaiah 53:4

He did more for us than anyone will ever do or even COULD do. Yet, we still reject Him; we still turn from Him.

All of you single girls out there that are in a state of depression because of your relationship status. Don't keep searching tirelessly for "the one" because you already HAVE "the ONE" standing there begging for your heart. You will never be able to have the kind of relationship you're searching for unless you allow God to ready you and your soul mate first. Give God your heart, because He is desperately in-love with you. There is a quote that I absolutely love that says "A girls heart should be buried so deep in God that for a man to win her heart, He has to find God first."

I have too often tried to find love and worth in the people and things around me, but after 20 years I am (finally) starting to grasp the fact that my worth has never come from anything or anyone. Jesus values me more than anyone ever will...I needn't search any further than Him.

Honestly, it doesn't matter what you've done or where you've come from, because God's love is powerful enough to wash it all away as if it never happened. There are none too far that God's love cannot reach.

If we have God's love, fabulous. That is something to be joyful about! Freedom in Christ means freedom in love. It means the one thing that makes us different and unique than everyone else in the world is free for all to have as their own. But what if they don't know about it? What if someone that knows you and spends time with you died today and you had never told them about that love you have inside? That would be blood on your hands. I'm not saying that everyone you know that dies without coming to Christ will be your fault. If you've told those around you about Christ then you've done your job. Prayer is the only thing that can be done if they won't listen. But we had better make sure we proclaim Jesus to those we choose to spend time around. And truly, we shouldn't even HAVE to tell them about God; they should see it in everything that we do.

Go back in your mind to the time before you were filled with the love of God; remember the sadness, the pain, burden of mistakes that haunted you day after day... Do you remember what it felt like? Everyone you choose to keep your gift from, you are allowing to live that miserable life. If we have accepted God's gift of love, our JOB is to share it. The people of the world have been diagnosed with the most deadly of diseases: sin. God has handed us the antidote to spread to everyone we can reach, to share it with everyone who wants it. Are we seeking those who will forever be lost?

I think we have thrown out the "well I made a good Christian" card one too many times. Be honest...we have all gone to those who would "make good Christians" in our minds. We pick and choose who WE feel deserves God's gift... as if we have the right to do so. Most of the time we probably even go to the people who seem to like us! We think "well there's one more that thinks I'm a pretty good role model." This attitude would automatically cut us out of the "worthy" group because we have made HIM about US. We can compare ourselves to the lesser or worse people all we want to make us feel better about how we're living. The cold hard truth is this; doing that doesn't make us look any better.

See, God doesn't compare us to one another. He doesn't pick the homeless man off the street and compare him to the wealthy businessman in the uptown apartment buildings. The perfect example is Christ, and compared to Him I'm sorry to say, we all look like a pile of mud. No more "I'm better than Bob" or "well at least I'm not like Shirley over there." No! We have all sinned, we all nailed those nails into Christ' hands and feel, we have all cursed His name by sinning against the most Holy God.

We were all headed down a slide to hell...but those who called out to God were snatched up with forgiveness into His loving hands, saving them from eternal damnation. Those who have humbled themselves enough to say "I am nothing" are the ones that received EVERYTHING because they have been filled with Christ Jesus.

It gets ever better! God didn't just save us from eternity in the lake of fire; He saved us so He could be WITH us. Think about it. He could have just died, risen from the dead and been on His merry way...not looking back or even ever thinking of us again. But that's not what He chose to do. He loves us SO much that He wants to spend time with us, so He made a way to fellowship with us for eternity. Wow. He WANTS to be with us! How humbled we should be that HE wants US. That He weeps when He loses another one of His creation to hell everyday when He gave everything so He could spend time with them and be there for them.

This is true love. Jesus, is true love. And how grateful we should be that He is.