True Love.

    *I know love can go many different ways, but I'm just using the typical guy girl relationship comparison I see on a daily basis.               
           Love. It's misused and abused daily. Do you know the real meaning of love?

  It's not lust. On TV shows, in music, it's everywhere. The consistent confusion between love and lust. Lust is a desire, one that will pass. It comes and goes. The feelings that spontaneously hit you in the stomach can weaken once some one's "oh-so-funny" personality gets old, or your physical attraction lessens at times. It can/will take time to grow to love somebody. But with lust, the feelings that you have towards somebody can start immediately. Lust is tricky. Watch out for it.

  It's not infatuation. Those emotions that come in the beginning of a relationship is infatuation. It's commonly confused with love, even more so than lust in my opinion. You feel like you can spend the rest of your life with so-n-so. They seem perfect in every way possible, their smile, their laugh, the little things they do. It's all perfect. They're constantly on your mind. All roads lead to (enter name here). The cute things they say and do. The things you wish they would say and do, tend to take over most areas of your mind. The branches in your brain with their name on it grows stronger and stronger. You immediately smile when someone says their name. Your heart beats a little faster when you see them...etc. Yes, this is infatuation. Not love.
  It isn't giving your heart to someone and expecting them to love you back. Have you noticed this? People who are desperate for love tend to think if they invest enough of their heart into a relationship, the feelings ought to be returned. "Yes, we have such deep conversations. This is true love right here!" I've even done this. Yes, we had a deep conversation and I spilled my guts. But I was the one doing it. Their response wasn't the same. I though *nod* "Uh-huh, yeah, I know what you mean." Meant, "Oh, we're clicking so well, tell me more." What happens when the love you've invested turns out to have been pushed aside? Just because you love someone, doesn't mean you've found your true love.

  Although, this is just a small portion of what love can be confused by, these are some of the big things I see.  These can be symptoms of love, but not love all in all. Now, what is love?

  Love is everlasting.  Lust & infatuation can vary from time to time. You're not going to spend your whole life infatuated with somebody. Sooner or later, you'll realize they're not completely perfect, but still love them. 

  Love means you genuinely care. You'll go to extreme lengths to make the person you love happy. Even if it ends up hurting you sometimes. When they're hurting, so are you. Your heart hurts for them through rough times, and you'll always be there as a shoulder to cry on, or a helping hand through times of trouble. When they're happy, you're right beside them doing the happy dance, cheering them on. Rather than being jealous, whenever that person you love has every thing going good for them, it makes you smile too. You also are the person they can count on to keep them grounded, who helps them remember who they really are, and what they are meant to be. You make it priority not to let them down, or to ever hurt them. You genuinely, truly care.

  Love is unconditional. No matter what happens, I'll still love you. People have a hard time with this one these days. We're supposed to continue to love even when someone doesn't meet the expectations we've created. Once they've made a bone head move, and we want to hire a heavy weight champion to beat them! We still love them no matter their actions. Matthew 18:21-22, "Then Peter came up to Jesus saying, 'Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?' Jesus said to him, 'I do not say seven times, but seven times seventy times seven'." Why? Because you love them. Jesus died and forgave you because He LOVED you. People take commitment so lightly these days.  Aren't you glad He didn't?
  Love is sacrificial.  As people are screaming at Jesus for committing NO crimes, as nails are puncturing His hands, as the pain intensifies and He sees the people He's dieing for, Jesus makes this cry, "Lord, forgive them, they know not what they do."  I don't know about you, but I'd say, "Heck with you ungrateful people!"  I would summon 100 angels to bring me home! Yes, that's true sacrifice. Nothing you can get from the just anyone..
  Love is blind. Even when you look your worse, love remains. This is where lust can be confused with love. Once the physical attraction is gone, you continue loving them. You love them as a whole. It's greater than skin deep, because love is based on their heart also.
  Love is this, and oh so much more! Not to be confused with anything else, love is love. Something even greater to define love is this: GOD IS LOVE.
  You knew it was coming. Yes, God is love. Completely flawless, amazing, awe-inspired love. The love that will never leave you. That will return your love. That will go to the the greatest lengths you wouldn't even think of to make you smile. That will love you, despite anything you will ever or can ever do.  Jesus displays amazing love, saying we're to die for. No, not just die, dieing under the most gruesome conditions, all for you. This is the love that knows you have a bald spot, a skin condition that might make others cringe, and flaws society shuns. He thinks you're perfect despite that, and loves you unfathomably when your physical features are at it's worst. He sees our heart.
  Yes.. This is love.

  God is in love with me. And as you're reading this, just know, He loves you in this way also.

  Thanks for reading! Have a blessed day!

1 Corinthians 13

Love Is the Greatest

 ¹ If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. ³ If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;^[a] but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.  ⁴ Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud ⁵ or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. ⁶ It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. ⁷ Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
 ⁸ Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages^[b] and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! ⁹ Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! ¹⁰ But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless.
 ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. ¹² Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.^[c] All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
 ¹³ Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

 

 

 

     We appear in this life as a mist. Here one moment, then gone the next.

  Have you ever really stopped and thought about that? This life is just a brief stop on the way home. We're hear hardly no time at all, then suddenly, we're gone.

  Death. It's a morbid subject to many. But ultimately, it's just reality. There has never been a human being on this earth as long as it's been around that has lived forever(despite what Twilight says). In the end, we all die.

  We live each day as if tomorrow we can fix our problems. Procrastination is a day to day occurrence in millions of people's lives. "I'll start my diet tomorrow". "I'll get right with God tomorrow". "I'll go sit by the person who always sits alone some day this week". "I'll do................. on MY time".  I'm sure many of you reading this have done/said things like that yourselves. But, what if we didn't have tomorrow? What if we died without having got right with God? Or the person you were going to befriend killed themself when they got home because they were so lonely?

  This is reality. We live like the end is in a land far far away, when it can actually be at your door step. The problems we're procrastinating to face in our lives/spiritual lives can go unfixed, then there's no time for "backsies". Then what?

  Nobody knows the exact time when we'll depart from this life. But we all know it will happen. Do you live like you're ready? Of course, I don't think anyone can actually be ready for something like that. But would you be ready to leave without any regrets or missed opportunities? Would you be ready to face your creator? Your new eternal life?

  I say, starting now, we should live like tomorrow is a maybe rather than an expectation. No holding back, no regrets. Are you with me? No convictions of not witnessing to lost/broken souls because you say you'll do it on your time, instead of God's time. Not waiting until your wounds have healed to forgive someone, because they might not be there to forgive. Saying "I love you" at every departure because maybe they won't be back.

  Approximately 108 people die per minute. 156 thousand daily. Time here is short. Are you ready?

   On that happy note(haha), thanks for reading!

 

Jesus, God, and all that good stuff!

This is my first post, so bare with me.
  As I am reading Crazy Love, I find myself completely awestruck as to what Francis Chan has to say in just the preface. What he's saying is so true, but I've never really thought about it. These posts are made for you to go with me through this journey of reading Crazy Love. *This isn't just for people who have read crazy love, this can be for anyone and everyone*
     The American Churches are missing out.
        You've most likely heard this saying a million times, "Going to church doesn't make you more of a Christian than sitting in a garage makes you a car." But have you thought about it? I can sit in Church for hours on end, and that's never going to make me have a relationship my savior. I can nod my head and yell, "AMEN!" a hundred times, but that doesn't make what I'm agreeing with my life style. God desires SO much more than an Amen or Hallelujah, he wants that relationship with you throughout the rest of the week. He wants that time & love that your investing in money, relationships, school, jobs, etc etc, to be invested in growth in you and His relationship. Rather than punching in at Church once a week, then going through the rest of the week trying to live as a "good" Christian.
  Another thing that I think the Churches are missing out on, is what Jesus says is the second greatest command: Love. I can see many churches who care more about making their church bigger and better, rather than caring for the people who are already in it. That's right, they lack love. Love for the lost, the broken, the homeless, the orphans, the widows...etc etc, all the people who are going to church to find the love of God through Christians, instead of a pretty sand glass window behind the preacher and a large church attendance.
  That's just some of the things I see in the American churches today and how they're missing out.
   "God is Holy". Ponder upon that, think about it. Holy? You hear that word all the time, mostly as "Holy crap" or other blasphemous ways. But what does it mean to you? To me, I think of it as "whole"y, God is whole. He is whole and complete in every aspect. We're broken in ways we don't even think about. As we get closer to God, his "whole"y-ness takes over the broken places in our lives, and makes us holy just as He is.
  In the book, Chan says that holy means set apart. Distant from us. I strongly disagree with that. God WAS set apart from us, then Jesus died for us to mend that separation. That's just my opinion.
  "God is all-knowing" That one is an amazing and yet scary statement. It's comforting in the sense of when we're in trouble or in tuff times, God sees us. He knows our circumstances. He knows when He should intervene to help you with your troubles. Then he also knows what happens after everything goes back to how they should be.
  God is all knowing. While you're reading something you shouldn't, or listening to something you shouldn't, He sees you doing it. He knows your heart and the double life your living between Christianity and Worldliness. He knows the motives behind your actions, the lies behind the truth, and the cries you're trying to hide behind the smiles. God is ALL knowing.
  Just as I'm writing this, I'm thinking about how outstanding of a God I have. He knows everything about everyone in the whole world (approximately 6,775,223,700), and yet, he still takes time to nudge at my spirit whenever I listen to "no-no" music. And at the same time, He's speaking to someone contemplating suicide, or healing someone of a life threatening disease. Yep, an absolutely astounding and loving God indeed!
  Hebrews 4:13, "Nothing in all of creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account."
  One of the questions in Crazy Love is, "Why are we here?" The answer? Quick and simple: Through Him and for Him.
  But if that wasn't enough of an explanation, here's a more in depth answer. God is the creator of everything around you. The computer I'm writing on right now, God made the inventor of computers and gave them a mind amazing/smart enough to figure out such a complex(to me anyways) invention. The plants around me, God made that. Not only the ones around me, but the very first one also. We were made to glorify this amazing God, and to spread the good news about His love. Oh, yeah, I left that part out. Not only did God make every plant around me and create every genius mind around, He also loves us ALL! We can't even fathom how much He loves us! Wow. Just, wow!
  We're made to glorify Him in everything we do. Whether it's stopping and taking a second to recognize his greatness, give a Christianly hug to someone who's hurting, or giving Him your all out praise.
  Did that answer the question? :)
  1 Corinthians 2:9, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what has been prepared for those who love Him."
  Well, I hope you have benefited from this blog. I know I have from just writing it. Have you ever just stopped and wrote down and thought about all the marvelous things God is doing on a daily basis? I gotta say, it put an ear to ear smile to think I worship this amazing(amazing doesn't even explain 1/4 of how great he is) God.
  Have a blessed day! :)