Interests:Mixed Martial Arts :: Baseball :: Softball :: Football Expertise:Impluse shopping :: Knowing useless information :: Applying the rear naked choke Occupation:Fighter Industry:Putting people to sleep
Love is more than the relationship between a man and a woman, no matter how extraordinary it may be. Love is ever expanding. Love always grows, not just deeper, but wider. Love always loves people more and always love more people. Love calls us to community; love calls us to humanity; love calls us to each other...Where there is no love, there is no God. At the same time, if there were no God, there would be no love. - Erwin McManus [Soul Cravings]
I think Erwin McManus hit the nail right on the head. I feel like we focus so much effort in loving people, who we already love, more deeply that we at times fail to expand our love to others. I am definitely guilty of this. The only way for us to love one another is to love our community. Christians or CHRIST Followers as I like to say, can't just love other Christ followers, our family members, our friends, and whoever else we consider significant in our lives. How does this fulfill The Great Commission? I feel like we focus so much on bringing people to Jesus, that we forget to love them first. Like really love on them. We need to look past the exterior and look at the interior and the potential of that person. In jiu jitsu there's a phrase that goes, "position before submission." In otherwords, you can't submit/tapout someone without putting yourself in a position to do so. We can't expect to win people over to Jesus if we don't geniunely love them first. Like Erwin McManus says, "Where there is no love, there is no God."
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
1 John 4:7-12 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice forour sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
Also, I just read an article that Major League Baseball players are freaking out about Obama raising top federal income taxes on families that generate an income of $250,000 or more from 35% to 39.6%. Um...I'm waiving an imaginary middle finger to MLB players right now. The league minimum is $400,000. Those who get the league minimum are often the bench warmers. Again...now waiving double middle fingers at these guys. Sorry but it sounds like you are going to have to think twice about about buying another fully loaded Escalade you greedy D-bags! Try working a 40 - 60 hour work week behind a desk in a cubicle making a small fraction of what your MLB salary is. I love baseball, but there are some D-Bags playing baseball.
I just started reading this book called Soul Cravings by Erwin McManus. He begins the book by talking about love and intimacy. I found myself examining my "love" for people and found that in most cases, my love is empty and superficial. Love goes beyond stating the three-word phrase, "I Love You". To love someone is a very intimate emotion. To genuinely love someone is to entrust that person with your life. When you say, "I love you" to someone, you are essentially saying, "Here is my life. You now have the ability to ruin me if you please." In otherwords, we are trusting them with our heart, soul and mind. We are giving this person the ability to literally ruin us. Isn't that funny? A lot of want to love and be loved so much, that we forget to realize that love can hurt us. When we think of love, we only think about the positive aspects of it; but overlook the potential dangers of love as well. Love is powerful. Like a grenade in your hand, love can blow up in your face if handled recklessly. I mean, how many of us would like to walk around with a grenade in our pocket everyday? But the irony is that we need love. Because we were not designed to be alone. There is a phrase that says that One is the lonliest number. When we feel alone in this is world, when we feel empty inside, it is at this point where we can do the most destruction. "Who cares? Nobody's watching", "No one will miss me", "I have nothing to live for"...All common phrases for those who feel as sense of worthlessness and emptiness. These people are alone. We need love in order for us to live.
The book goes on to say that Love must contain the following:
Joy Hope Forgiveness Compassion
It took me a while to figure this out. But I think I get it, and I agree. I'm on the bandwagon where without these for things, love cannot exist. Why? Because I think this is what Jesus' life represented. Jesus was meant to bring all four of these things to earth through His birth and resurrection. I've challenged myself to love others with these four things in mind. Notice I said "challenged"...Love is not something that can be perfected. I will never love anyone perfectly. Nor will I ever experience a perfect love from another human. Perfect love comes from God because God is love.
There are a lot things in life that are uncertain. Uncertainty can range from not knowing what you are going to eat for lunch to not knowing what is going to happen 5 years from now. It is a lack of sureness about an idea. But uncertainty isn't a bad thing...Not at all. It can be a good thing. Think about it...Imagine knowing how every book ended after reading the first chapter or knowing that Bruce Willis was dead the entire time during the Sixth Sense [sorry to spoil that for some of you, but seriously...Welcome to yesterday]. Along a more deeper line of thinking, imagine knowing everything that was going to happen to you. That would honestly be awful don't you think? Yes, it could come in handy, but do you really want to know who you're going to marry 5 years before it happens or what your children are going to be like before they are born? The element of surprise is stripped from you and you are left with literally nothing to look forward to. What about the things you don't want to look forward to? Do you really want to know when and how people in your life are going to die? Do you really want to know when and how you will die? I don't. I think what I'm learning is that life is full of uncertainties and that's perfectly ok. It's uncertainties that keep us alive. To be able to wake up every morning and seek out new discoveries is what drives and motivates us to press forward...To seeking new discoveries about God and to get to know Him more and more each day, that's what brings us more intimate with Him. Let's face it, the reality is that we are uncertain about God. Yes, we are certain we love Him. We are certain about John 3:16. We are certain that Jesus will come again. But are we so sure about the fullness of God? I would say no. To be certain of the very essence of God would be like saying that you have God all figured out. But God is bigger than our meager understanding of him. I don't care what church you go to, who your pastor is, where you went to seminary, who your mama or your daddy is...You don't have a full grasp of God. None of us do. That my friends is the mysterious nature of God. He works in mysterious ways.
But don't get me wrong, there are some "certainties" [notice the quotes] in life. But those certainties are relative to you and the condition of your heart. Our "certainties" [again, notice the quotes] in our own lives are usually those of intimate nature. For instance, I'm certain that Jesus loves me. I'm certain that I love Jesus. I'm certain that my family loves me, and I love them. For some of us, we are certain that we love our significant other and that they love us. But yes...even love is uncertain in most cases.
