Modern-Day Love

We live in a world of love stories. Everywhere we go, we are bombarded with what "love" means: Flipping through a magazine, watching the newest Hollywood film, turning on the radio, combing the clothing rack in the mall...Love exists! But what is the quality of this love that envelops our everyday? Most of this "love" is clothed in lies, lies that have been instilled in us since entering this life. In actuality, it is often the furthest thing from love. It is lust, dominion, self-protection, self-acquiring of needs, it is tainted with sin...with us. It is not what unbelievers are looking for, because it is nothing new. If we cannot love one another as fellow believers, the way God sees love, how are we to love unbelievers? How are we to love our enemies? How are we to wake up a world to truth? Satan has used forms of "love" to destroy. Relationships, friendships, families...not just between one another...but also between us and God. For if we do not fully understand love, then we are missing who God truly is; for He IS Love.

I was recently reminded of a passage I once read daily: Psalm 139. God prompted me to redeem the message through these verses because it had become words that were full of brokenness and hurt. He reminded me that the truth in those words were still true, because they were always HIS words. God is the author of love, so why do we so often look outside of his truth to gain understanding of this love? We end up confused, disoriented, hurt, and unable to deliver truth to others in it's wholeness.

Hosea had it right on. Or, rather, God through Hosea. What a privilege to be used by God as a vessel for portraying to the world what Love really looked like! That Hosea would continue to purely love someone who would regularly betray him. That Jesus loves us purely, as we continually mess up...he loved us, while we were at our worst. That place in which all of us can look back upon and think, he really loved me then? Yes. He Loved. He loved without lust, without dominion or power, without self-protection and without the purpose of fulfilling his own needs. This is how we are to love. This is the kind of Love that we need to be displaying to the world that we live in. Let us peel back the cultural graffiti of lies that have distorted Truth.

Kingdom Politics

1 President, 535 members of Congress, 100 Senators, 2 mainstream political affiliations. These numbers seem to control more than politics...they seem to have reached their control and power to the very heart of the American citizen. We attribute all of this country's problems to the core of Washington, while believing, that the everyday American, has lost all influence...we are sheep that are blindly led to the slaughter. We cannot influence our surroundings, our cities, let alone our country. And we continue to walk in this self and nation-defeating lie.

It's funny, I battle the same war with the students that I counsel throughout the day. They have this mentality of survival, no hope of influencing their lives to any ounce of improvement. Our mindsets are caged and shackled. Those above numbers represented within our government, while holding much power in their hands, hardly come to a fraction of the entire United States. Imagine if we were actually United. Imagine what kind of power and influence we could conjure. What if we brought that influence and unity into the realm of faith. Can you imagine? I can. I see a nation where churches weren't concerned about owning their "turf" of a congregation or denomination...where social justice causes were the reason for DC marches and stand outs...where we, as Christ's followers, took care of one another...reaching our range of influence from state to state...across borders of nationality and race, creed or color. United for the common goal of living past mere survival...living to influence.

How can I get up each day if I believe I can't make a difference? This nation's sickness goes deeper than D.C., it goes to the core of beliefs of every individual who walks these streets of life. We must change our mindset first. Change is only possible from the inside out. We, the everyday American, are the inside. We have the power to influence. And, I dare say, As followers of Christ, we have the responsibility to choose such influence.

Identification

So many times we are quick to point fingers, to label the sin and the sinners it belongs to. We feel the need to make it clear to God that we weren't "apart of this or that sin", as if God doesn't know and see everything already. God is both Justice and Love. We don't have to sway him to know truth. Maybe we should consider the opposite approach; a concept of identification that the old time prophets, Ezra and Nehemiah, so graciously walked out. Identifying with the sin of others. Replacing the "you's" with "we's", lifting others' sin upon our own shoulders...walking beside, sharing the burden...Identification. Implying that we are so moved to the grievance of sin, and it's consequences of bondage upon God's people, that we enter the muddy waters, grab hold of the sin in our own hands, and cry to God on behalf of his children. What if America's leaders were to identify with the national sins that this country has committed, both throughout history and as we speak? What if leaders, today, were to attach sin to their name so as to ask for forgiveness? I keep getting this image of Jesus, stretched out...wreathing in pain with all of the sin of the world to his name. He took responsibility for our sin. He identified in order to bring grace and freedom. A leader leads out in taking responsibility for the actions of his/her team...their people. Let us follow in leading out as imitators of this most humble and gracious, Jesus, who in his identification of our sin, became our Savior.