Love

This post was inspired from the common bond I see in humanity. Its a comment on the human condition. And as general as that sounds it is so achingly personal and it haunts me every day of my life.
Why do we love? Simple. Feeling loved and giving love is the closest to heaven we can get on Earth. It is in our souls..it is written on our hearts. We search for it, yearn for it, write about it, sing about it, dance for it, fight for it, die for it.
We live and die by love. To love is to be human. It is the deepest longing of our hearts to be accepted and loved. We will do stupid things, crazy things.....and if we arent careful our pursuit for love can become twisted...distorted...unhealthy and it can corrupt us. The irony, the sadness of longing for love to be known, to be intimate...to be loved unconditionally can very very very easily be the ruin of us!
It doesnt make sense does it? It seems to be that everyone wants the same thing. What seems so natural to our being, or personhood is so so so hard!
Everyone wants to love and be loved.....and yet why are relationships so broken? Why are relationships so hard? Why do we hurt eachother?
And those mountaintop experiences never last do they?!! Its infuriating isnt it? We try and try and try and yet we ruin everything. What seems so innate and natural inside us becomes difficult and turns to heart ache. And before we know it its all happening again...the cycle is endless.
The continued pains leaves scars that many people cannot recover from.
Well....I would say the reason this happens is not because we werent meant to have beautiful relationships full of love but becuase we are the problem. We cant love people unconditionally like we should. I mean thats what we want right? So it seems to reason we should be able to follow through. But we cant. We are messed up. People are messed up. Relationships are messed up. They are broken and distorted.
What do you do?
When you have turned to everyone you can possibly turn to...your family, your friends, your best friends, your guy friends, your girl friends, your romantic interests...you've tried everything and no one is there for you.
It is at this point that everything seems hopeless. You've hit rock bottom and all you ever wanted to hit was someone who loved you completely and accepted you totally.
Only one person can do that. That person is God. He is by definition; Love. Why is this desire to be loved written on our souls? Because we reflect our maker, our creator. If God is love then it stands to reason we long for love with all our being.
Imagine if you could turn to every single person on earth...for love. In the end no on can love you the way your heart really wants to be loved. No one. God can....God does.
He loves you so much He sent his son to die on the cross.....to die for all that broken crap in the world. To die for all that sin in the world....all things we are ourselves are guilty of....We all are guilty of hurting people.
Well Jesus died so we didnt have to be miserable anymore. If we admit that we are messed up and broken and guilty of our own share of crud, ask for forgiveness and then believe that God in his perfect love sent his son to die for all of that and that Jesus conquered death and sin and reunited us to the perfect love of God then our lives will change.
Rather than looking for love and truth in the brokenness of this earth...in the broken people around us.....in ourselves
we can find PERFECT LOVE, PERFECT ACCEPTANCE in God....who is by his very nature and definition Love.
Imagine that!!!
Love is written on our hearts for a purpose. And God doesnt want you to hurt...He wants you to turn to him.
The perfect Lover, who will never abandon you.

Philippians 2:4-8
"Let each of you esteem and look upon and be concerned for not merely his own interests, but also each for the interests of others.
Let the same attitude and purpose and humble mind be in you which was Christ Jesus...(Let him be your example in humility)
Who, although being essentially one with God and possessing the fullness of the attributes which make God God, did not think this equality with God was a thing to be retained.
But He stripped himself of all privileges and rightful dignity, so as to assume the guise of a servant, (slave), in that he became like men and was born a human being.
And after he had appeared in human form, he abased and humbled himself and still further carried his obedience to the extreme of death, even the death of the cross!

Imagine having perfect love...perfect is an imaginary word to us on earth, because everything is broken...there is nothing truly perfect here. But Jesus had it.
A perfect relationship with his Father...perfectly accepted and loved and yet out of that love he chose to leave that perfect state and descend to earth. Amazing.
And then he went even further...rather than simply coming down here...he actually took all that brokenness and took the burden of sin for us...
Jesus was obeying his Father by dying on the cross for us to have access to God.


Romans 3:23
All have sinned and fallen short of the honor and glory to God.

Romans 3:22 But
"Righteousness of God which comes by believing with personal trust and confident reliance on Jesus Christ (the Messiah-Savior)

To be honest with you...I do not feel satisfied in posting this entry as it is. It is not sufficient for the great magnitude and depth of the topic.

And to be honest with you....this post was written for one person that I met recently. Someone God purposefully put in my life and I in hers. (And it was more than simply being a helping hand at the hospital!)
I hope she reads it and finds peace, acceptance, forgiveness, righteousness, hope and love from her heavenly Father.

But as I mentioned it is important for everyone to hear because it speaks to the human condition and it is a daily importance for me to hear as well.

PS
Romans 5 is great too...
We are justified, declared righteous, given a right standing with God, through Faith, let us grasp the fact that we have peace and reconciliation to enjoy peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Through Him we also have our access by faith into this grace, (state of God's favor) in which we we firmly and safely stand!
And let us rejoice and exult in our hope of experiencing and enjoying the glory of God.
Moreover let us also be full of joy now! let us exult and triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings....(READ THAT AGAIN) knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance.
And endurance develops maturity of character (tried integrity). And this character produces the habit of joyful and confident hope of eternal SALVATION!
Such hope as this NEVER disappoints or deludes us, for Gods LOVE has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
While we were yet in weakness, POWERLESS TO HELP OURSELVES!, at the fitting time Christ died for and in behalf of the ungodly, (us).
Now it is extraordinary thing for one to give his life even for an upright man, though perhaps for a noble and lovable benefactor someone might even dare to die.
But God shows and clearly proves his own love for us by the fact that while we were still SINNERS, Christ died for us.
Therefore now we are justified , brought into right relationship with God, by Christ's blood, how much more , certain it is that, we shall be saved by Him from the wrath of God.

AMEN and AMEN!

(taken from the amplified Bible version, Romans 5:1-9)