Keeping our eyes open

The Earth is full of truth and hints that point to our creator, if only we will open our eyes to them. Creation itself screams of God and his wisdom, majesty, and power. Our modem world is increasingly running away full speed from truth and is in fact often offended by it. As a result, life becomes more and more unstable and crazy. In my opinion, the Bible is another creation that is an absolute miracle and reveals God's love for and his wisdom given to our broken world. It never ceases to amaze me how I can read something in the Bible ten times and then read it again one day and God shows me something in there I never saw before, and it's always just at the right time when I need direction on something. Sometimes when I read a scripture I'm reminded of a truth I already knew and just needed a refresher on. There is a peace that exists when we have a relationship with Jesus, but it doesn't cultivate itself. We need to be spending time in his word regularly, seeking his guidance and instruction for our lives and to be praying regularly. It's a relationship. He's always there waiting for us to come to him.

Valentine's Day reflections 2024

It's Valentine's Day today, so for those of us who are pondering various aspects of love, or thinking of those who are the objects of our love, what do we think love should look like? In America, we are surrounded by examples of what selfish love looks like, in my opinion. We are told to be our "true self" all the time. Usually what that actually amounts to is following our selfish desires and our unstable feelings, no matter what that costs or who it hurts in the process. We see it all the time especially in Hollywood, but really this is happening all around us. People fall "in and out of love," or so we are told. Things get hard, as life sooner or later always does, a relationship requires sacrifice or some hard work, and rather than being willing to do that and demonstrate something that would actually pass for true love, often the choice is made to take the easier path and follow our "heart's desire." We see this all the time nowadays, people are often willing to break up their families and dissolve a marriage because "they deserve to be happy." It is a huge disservice to our world to hold such a view of entitlement, and it leaves in its wake a path of destruction, as is clearly visible in our country and our world today.

Luckily, God doesn't have such a messed up and distorted idea of love as our modern and "progressive" culture does, he is after all the author of it. If God had loved us in the sick way that we often "love" each other, none of us would have a hope in this world. I'm thankful though that God in his infinite wisdom demonstrated what perfect love looks like by sending Jesus to our broken world. Romans 5:8 says that "...God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." We are all sinners and could never earn the love of God, yet he loves us anyways and proved it with Jesus coming into our world. Jesus taught so much on what love looks like in real life, and we can all learn much from him, especially on this topic.

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, "Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ -Matthew 22:37-39

He also went on to say, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." -John 15:9-13 NIV

We are not able to love perfectly, and apart from God we are all bent towards a very selfish idea of what love actually is and what it looks like. Let us be refreshed that we have a savior who loves perfectly, and comes into our life to help teach us how to love in the same way.