-God is love. And if He is in us, if He is living and abiding in us, then His love is IN us. Which means it should naturally come oozing out of us, out of every spiritual pore and fiber of our being. It is not simply that He loves us - which is everlastingly and transformationally true on so many levels. It is not merely this love which comes to us as some outside benevolence. No, this Love comes to us and INto our space, INvades our entire person. All up in our kitchen and the whole entire house. It comes into our heart and mind and soul and settles right down - not for a long winter’s nap, but for an extreme home makeover. God’s love - the God Who IS love, all love, all the time - takes over. His love overtakes us and overwhelms us (or should) in such a way that we will never be the same. It has us in its grip. It compels us to be and live differently (cf 2Corinthians 5.14-15)! We come to not only know in the deepest depth of our soul that God, our almighty Creator, our heavenly Father truly loves us, but we increasingly become ONE WHO LOVES. (More) Like Him. A love machine, if you will. Not a huggin’ kissin’ fiend, but rather one in whom and from whom the unconditional everlasting love of God courses and flows, flowing out like a river of life-giving soul-quenching water in the desert.
-Isn’t that what our souls are truly thirsting after, love? Our hearts are love-sick, are they not? Desperate for love. We would do anything for love - or just about. Jefferson Airplane captured it perfectly - “Don't you want somebody to love, Don't you need somebody to love, Wouldn't you love somebody to love, You better find somebody to love.” It was a counterculture message at the time, that time of free love when people were jumping in and out of relationships like they were so much kleenex. Good for a single use or two, and then on to the next. On to the next. But our heart-of-hearts is designed for more than a one-night-stand (or two), is it not? We are wired for that true love which will never leave or forsake us, are we not (Hebrews 13.9)? We each long for that love which bears all things and believes all things and endures all things, love which never fails, do we not (1Corinthians 13.7-8)? I would suggest that any who say otherwise are actually running from love, running from some kind of pain in their past, or running from what love might cost them - but sadly they are running from the one thing which will truly thrill and satisfy their soul. Yes, love is costly. It cost God His Son. It is hard work. But naught will suffice for the want of it. Love IN us - this is life, THE life, the life God has for us, offers us in His Son. Not love somewhere out there, beneath the pale moonlight, or somewhere in the stratosphere. We’re talking real love, right here, in me, flowing out to you and back again. And if we ever get this thing going, it’ll be beautiful, it will be a sight to behold, breathtakingly good and glorious. Which is precisely the point... God is love, and He LOVES US! Do I really know this? Is it in me? Is He in me?
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