The Love of God…

The love of God has been portrayed as a gentle love. Kinda always pictured God as this man who loved me, and was waiting at an alter with His arms open waiting on me to come to Him. I pictured Him patiently sitting there, hoping I would happen to come His way. In all my years of hearing preaching and stories of His love, it came across to me as passive. He would take me and love me if I came to Him, but I was sort of taught I had to initiate the relationship. NOTHING could be further from the truth.

The Love of God pursues….

As much as I believe He enjoys dwelling in church services with His own, He doesn’t stay there. His love pursues, it reaches, it searches, it comes after you with a vengeance. It meets you where you are and cares enough not to leave you there. It speaks to you while you are sitting on bar stools, or in the darkest of pits, or lost with no sense of where to turn. It longs for you and sends out the search parties for you when you are stuck in the ditch, stuck in life, or stuck in depression. It yearns to have you by it’s side, and will stop and nothing to make that happen. It doesn’t sit passively by with a one hand barely stretched out and a shrug of a shoulder with an attitude of “if they come to me, they come to me”. No, it runs rampant after you with arms swinging, and legs like lighting, and feet pounding the ground beneath it. It pursues with a purpose and with a no-holds barred attitude. It is desperate for you.

The Love of God is violent…..

I understand that when He captures you, His love in gentle and caring. However, to get to you, His love is violent tackling every obstacle in it’s way. It will break down walls to come after you. It will climb the highest of mountains to come after you. It will light up the dark and expose the lies of the enemy to show you how it cares for you. Just as a firefighter with an axe in hand will go to the greatest of lengths to rescue someone from a burning building, God’s love is relentless and does what it takes to rescue you from your own personal torment. It will NEVER give up on you.

The Love of God is “All-In”….

He is not concerned with how foolish it may make Him look to whole heartedly pursue you, He does it anyway. The love of God is selfless to it’s very core. With no regard to the great possibility of rejection, or the fact that you could never love Him back with the same intensity He loves you; He, with no hesitation,  pours His affections out on you. Never are His feelings, His emotions, or the way He is treated effect the way His love is directed or given. He doesn’t ration His love out a piece here and a piece there. Rather He lavishly, fully covers you to the point you are dripping in His love.

You see, when I was preached to about the “Do’s” and the “Do-not’s” of religion, I could easily walk away. When I was told about rules and regulations, I had no interest in pursuing a relationship with Him. When I felt like I needed to get my act together and felt as though I needed to be perfect before He would love and accept me, it felt too overwhelming to even get started, and down right impossible do. BUT….when I was face to face with His LOVE….it was something I couldn’t resist. Knowing that not only did He say He would die for me, but He proved that by being beaten, bruised, and tormented in my place. That got my attention and stirred my heart. All the times He has reached out for me at the lowest points in my life and embraced me, all the times His love rescued me, and all the times relentlessly pursued me….that was something I couldn’t resist.  Knowing that He knows all my faults, all my sins, all my short comings, and all the times I’ve failed….and He STILL chooses to loves me with no hesitation and lavishly give His love way; that I couldn’t ignore. Never has He held His love from me. Never has He even made me question His love for me. Never have I reached for Him and not found Him. After all, God IS love.

Side note….if you get the chance look up the song “Reckless love of God” by Cory Asbury. ITS AMAZING!

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