Month: February 2016

A Special Kind of Love

God is love, but He is a special kind of love. He isn’t the hearts and flowers love found in romance novels or Valentine’s Day cards, but He does understand our need for such love. He is covenant love, and that is unlike any other love. I can miss experiencing covenant love if I allow myself to get tangled in my own desires, but I can know the depth of its beauty when I trust God with all of my heart. He will never force His love upon me because that would destroy His very nature, but He does give the perfect example of covenant love in His Son, Jesus Christ.

No one loved Jesus more than the apostle John, so a great place to get an idea of covenant love is by looking at what he says about it in John 3:16-17

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.” (NLT)

The two verses together give a beautiful definition of covenant love that even my little third-grade Sunday School class could understand. When I ask if their parents would die trying to save them, they gave a resounding “YES!!” in unison. They also agreed that their parents would risk their lives for others. Several had fathers who were law enforcement officers or soldiers, so the idea of putting your life on the line for someone else was familiar to them. My next question was no less confusing. When I asked if their parents would offer up the lives of their children to save someone else. Their “NO!!” was even louder than their earlier “YES!”

I told them I, too, would risk my life to save others; my son was at the top of my list of those I would die for, and they were on it, as well. I made it very clear that there was nothing for which I cared enough to give my son’s life. They completely understood and marveled that God could love them enough to give up His Son’s life to save them.

Verse sixteen is the most familiar in the Bible, but verse seventeen is just as powerful. God not only loves us more than we are capable of understanding, His Son didn’t come to judge us. He came to save us. That’s covenant love in a nutshell. There is a special Hebrew word for such love-hesed. It is the word used beautifully in Isaiah 54:10.

“For the mountains may move
    and the hills disappear,
but even then my faithful love for you will remain.
    My covenant of blessing will never be broken,”
    says the Lord, who has mercy on you.” (NLT)

To love with God’s loyalty is not possible for a mere human being, but Jesus did it beautifully. His precious love encourages me to try, and that trying is what walking in God’s kingdom is all about. Christ’s love reflects His Father’s love and puts all other love into perspective. Romance is great, and brotherly love is powerful. Our hearts need all kinds of love to grow as God desires, but covenant love is necessary if I want to walk in His kingdom now.

Covenant love isn’t in all our relationships. It is very special and should be cherished and nurtured when found because it is a sweet taste of heaven. I thank God for allowing me to experience such love; it changes everything. Covenant love isn’t an easy love to embrace and can easily be lost. God knew how difficult it would be for us, so He sent His Son and His Holy Spirit to help us experience its wonder.

Christ’s precious love comes from God, the Father, and the seeds He planted over two thousand years ago in His Son’s heart still flourish in those willing to let them take root in their own hearts.

A Different Kind of Lent

The Lenten Season has always been a challenge, but the past three years have been particularly difficult ones for me.  God’s call to leave a familiar church family came as the Lenten Season began three years ago. I was confused, but I obeyed. I was confounded by His call to leave corporate worship altogether eight months ago, but I was spent and didn’t question His motives. I wasn’t the only one confused or confounded by His call. One man told me last month that I should stop using God as my excuse for not going to church. Others bid me to go somewhere, anywhere!!

I was tempted to give in to their bidding because I have the need to make others happy, but God and I share a sweet connection that’s stronger than any other relationship I have. I’ve lost a few friends over the past three years, but I’ve gained many more. I would not give up one moment of the special time God and I have shared over the past eight months, but I would gladly give up all of the guilt I felt for not being in church even though I was told by someone who cared not to feel bad about not being anywhere.

My frustrations reached a breaking point last month, and I found myself faced with fork in the road. I could give in to the pressures of well-meaning friends or go where God wanted me to go. I know God well enough to know that He will let me go wherever I want to go, but I also know myself well enough to know that usually doesn’t end well. I decided to break away, trust God, and take the unknown fork.

There is a part of me that has a hard time accepting the level of love God offers, and that confounds me more than anything else. There’s no doubt in my mind that God loves me more than I can begin to imagine, but a nagging little voice continually pipes up to remind me that I don’t deserve His love. There’s a seed of truth in that naysayer’s pitch, but thankfully, Christ’s precious love and God’s amazing grace put that seed in the proper place.

I had my own timeline in regard to corporate worship. I was taking a year off no matter what, but last week, a friend asked me to visit her church. It is across the street from my new apartment, another big change in my life within the past year. I wanted to wait until June to reenter a church community. I was determined to stick to my plan, but her warm invitation felt so right. I longed for community, so I accepted her invitation. It ended up being a beautiful blessing, and I could imagine God grinning as my plans came unglued in the midst of His.

I wasn’t surprised by God’s timing, but I was surprised by His theme. He made it clear on this Ash Wednesday that He wanted me to forget about giving something up and start thinking about getting something new. That sounds like the beginning of a beautiful time of reflection to me.

 

 

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