With the images that Hollywood throws at us, not to mention the advertising industry – it’s easy for us to end up with a distorted sense of what love is. We know it’s the most important thing in the world – so, it’s time to discover the truth about love.

The Truth About Love

Today we are kicking off the exploration of a subject that, well … it seems ninety percent of the songs written in my life time are about this very thing – love. From the moment we are born, we need love, both in the physical sense, because without parents who love us we would perish within a few hours. But in an emotional sense too, we need to belong to a family, to a community, to a team. That need to belong is perhaps the strongest manifestation of our need for love.

And if you think about the great joys and the great tragedies that you have experienced in your life so far, my hunch is that love – people who loved us, people who should have loved us, people whom we loved or failed to love – have stood at the centre of both the highs and the lows. Sadly, we live in a world where love, or more to the point, the lack of it, is killing people – and if not killing them, then robbing them of a fantastic life.

In the cities of Australia at least, fully one third of all households are single person households. Many people are lonely; many are unloved and so, I wonder what goes through your heart and your mind when you hear that old Beetles’ classic, “All You Need is Love” playing on the radio? I wonder whether it brings great joy to your heart, knowing that you’re deeply, securely, safely loved, or whether it just serves to highlight the pain, the regret, the shattered hopes and dreams. Well, may they sing, “All You Need is Love”, question is, where do you get it?

And despite the lyrics of that song that tell us, and I quote: “It’s easy”, – anybody who’s had anything to do with this thing they call “luuurve” will tell you that it’s anything but. I mean on the one hand, we’re wired to love and to want to be loved. And so we draw close to people – man and woman, parent and child, friends, dear friends – and yet the closer we draw to them, the more vulnerable we become. Because love is about letting people in.

Love is about intimacy and openness and transparency, which is why, the more we love someone, the more they can hurt us. And that’s so often what happens. Seems that one imperfect person can’t love and be loved by another imperfect person without both of them getting hurt on a regular basis. When we open ourselves to the imperfections of another, it’s going to hurt.

And you know, as I look at the enormous love that God shows for us through Jesus, never is this truth more true than on that cross. It cost God so much to love us because we, I … I am that imperfect person, you are that imperfect person. And He loved us with an intimate love that ultimately cost the life of His Son, in order to bring us close to Him again. Back where we belong. Love and pain are, my friend, two sides of the one coin.

So, here’s where I’m coming from. At the beginning of this year, I began praying for you and the many other people who will listen to this programme around the world each week – that this year wouldn’t be a year again of unfulfilled promises of happiness but that this year would be the year when you discover unspeakable joy. Have a listen to this. First Peter chapter 1, verse 8:

Although you have not seen him – (that is Jesus) – you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

And that indescribable and glorious joy has everything – absolutely everything – to do with love. Although you haven’t seen Him, you love Him. Love lies at the heart of joy. Without love, there can be no joy. I spent much of my life searching for happiness, in this trinket and that bauble, things that the world dangled under my nose. Things that promised so much! And yet each time I grabbed onto them, any happiness they may have contained, evaporated almost instantly, because I was looking for happiness in “things”.

That’s how it is with happiness. It depends entirely on our circumstances, which is why so many people – including quite a number who believe in Jesus with all their hearts – are unhappy. They grumble and complain over their circumstances. They are often overcome by a negative outlook on life … even though they love Jesus. Why? Because they’re searching for happiness in the midst of their circumstances. But they rarely find it there, because there’s always someone or something to rob us of happiness. And the disappointment of those unfulfilled promises of happiness makes unhappiness even worse!

Joy, on the other hand … joy is something completely different. Because it has nothing whatsoever to do with our circumstances. It depends on a relationship; a relationship with God, through Jesus Christ. The same Jesus who came to this earth to suffer and to die for me and for you, so that we could have a deep, perfect, loving relationship with God.

And whilst this is the truth that lies at the very heart of the Gospel, the Good News – which is what the word “Gospel” literally means – for some reason we’re so thoroughly predisposed to missing it. Here is the Apostle John writing ostensibly to a dear lady, but many think he is writing to the church under persecution. Have a listen to what he says about joy and love and how they’re linked in truth. Second John, verses 4 to 6:

I was overjoyed to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we have been commanded by the Father. But now, dear lady, I ask you, not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but one we have had from the beginning, let us love one another. And this is love: that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment just as you have heard it from the beginning—you must walk in it.

The truth and love are intrinsically linked. And here John’s talking about love in two ways: loving each other, and the fact that loving God is about walking in His ways, in His commandments. Now this … this isn’t a particularly popular thing to suggest, because what it is saying is that in order for us to experience love, we need to do it according to God’s ways, according to God’s truth. And a lot of people – me included for a great part of my life – shy away from this whole idea of truth and commandments.

It’s counter cultural. It appears oppressive, doesn’t it?! Love on God’s terms. No, no! I want love on my terms. Well, let me ask you … how well has that been working so far? Because the way that you and I want to love is in a selfish way. Oh, we need love alright. But not this fantasy the singers dangle under our noses in their songs – not ‘luuurve’ – no we need the real thing. The sort of love that really makes a difference. First John chapter 4, beginning at verse 15:

God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love and those who abide in love abide in God and he in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us.

See, that’s the sort of love we need – perfect love! The sort that casts out all fear.

Disappointed in Love

The world is full of people who are disappointed in love; people who would say that they have been “unlucky” in love. How often have you and I been bruised or damaged in love? How often have the very people who should have stood by us; who should have understood us; who should have … well, you know – failed us? Seems that there can be no love without pain, so here’s my hunch; this is what I think happens: we want to believe that God is perfect love; we really, really do. In fact, there is every chance we have signed up to that theory lesson – that God is in fact, love.

But when it comes to the practise; when it comes to the way we live our lives, well, that’s a whole different thing. Actually, I found it quite easy to sign up to the theory of a perfect God who loves us perfectly. It seems to make sense. I mean, if there is a God, if He is all powerful and all loving as they say He is, well, the notion, the concept that His love for me is a perfect love. Yea, that works. Don’t you think? Well it does for me, anyway.

But you see, my own dad was no more perfect a father than I have been to my children. We do our best, hopefully, but we make mistakes. And so we look at this idea that God the Father is a perfect Father and then we look at our own fathers and that kind of clouds the reality. And when we consider the hurts that love has brought us in life – those who should have loved us; those who should have understood us; those who should have persevered with us; who should have this and should have that, but who didn’t and the pain of those losses weigh heavily on the human heart. The scars so often harden our hearts, closing them to the truth – the wonderful reality of the perfect, faithful love of God.

So, the love of God – as much as we may subscribe to the theory; as much as we may sing the songs about it; as much as we may nod as the preacher expounds upon it – is something that many, many people just miss out on.
I have a friend who is a worship leader at the church he goes to. And as someone who stands at the front a lot, looking back at the rest of us who are worshipping in song, or at least that’s what is supposed to be what is going on … worship! This is what he said to me. He said:

Berni, you wouldn’t believe what I see. People’s faces are blank. Only a handful shows any sign that they’re truly worshipping God. The rest just seem to be going through the motions – distracted by this and that, looking at their watches, turning around to see who’s coming in late. Have they discovered how much God loves them? Have they experienced His love?

And you know, that’s something I see, time and time again as well, as I travel around visiting churches. It’s as though people – many of whom faithfully toddle along to church each Sunday – have died inside and the Spirit of God hasn’t been able to bring them back to life again. Have a listen to this: First John chapter 4, verses 7 to 11:

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into this world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.

See, what John is saying here to us in this Letter, is that God is love and that love comes to life in us – His love – when we accept Jesus and let the Holy Spirit do His stuff in us. You kind of look at the cross and this Jesus – this Son of God – bleeding, suffering, dying up there for you and for me, on that hill just outside Jerusalem a couple of thousand years ago. And that’s where you discover love. As the Apostle Paul writes in Romans chapter 5:

Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were still sinners Christ died for us.

Over and over again, throughout the Bible, God is reaching out to us with a love; a perfect love; a completely unfathomable love that is the transcendent reality over all creation.

Wake up!! Look around! See the love that God has for us. And if today happens to be a day when we are surrounded by utter death and destruction; if today’s a day when we have been shaken to the foundations and beyond and everything that we took for granted as being permanent has collapsed around us, then as we turn our gaze towards this crucified Jesus, even in the midst of all the devastation that we can experience in life, the perfect love of God shines on our face with an unmistakable warmth.

My friend, this is not a love that we are called merely to provide intellectual ascent to – this is not a love that we are called to know about in theory – it’s a love that God beckons us to come close to and experience in reality; in the day to day reality of our lives.

As I travel around churches and preach of the love of God in the face of Jesus Christ, I will sometimes hand out small blank pieces of paper and ask each person present to write down a number between zero and ten, which represents how much God loves them. But I caution them before writing, ‘I don’t want the theologically correct answer; I don’t want the theory, I want the practice. In your experience; in your day to day walk, what is your experience of how much God loves you?’ And sadly … sadly the answer to that question consistently is that that survey returns an average of six out of ten.

Over this coming few weeks my passion is for us to discover in our own hearts – perhaps for some to rediscover – the wonder and the awe with which the Apostle Paul penned these words. Ephesians chapter 3, beginning at verse 16. He said:

I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

In other words, Paul want us to be rooted and grounded in this amazing love that is so huge that we can never completely get our hearts and minds around it.

On Solid Ground

Trees are amazing things! Have you ever watched them in a storm? Maybe a young sapling whose trunk flexes together with its branches in the wind or a tall, proud old tree with a solid trunk that stands firmly in the one place while the storm rages around it. For the tree, everything has to do with the ground it’s planted in. Firstly, the ground needs to be firm and solid. I mean, no good planting a tree in sand. That’s the sort that a strong wind can blow the tree straight out of the ground. Neither is it any good being planted on the edge of a cliff that is crumbling.

First of all a tree has to be planted into good soil, solid soil. But if you have ever done any gardening and planted new plants as they come out of the pot from the nursery, you will know they are often pot bound – they’re roots have kind of curled around and around the perimeter of the pot. And so when you plant a young tree, it could easily be blown over to start with because it hasn’t yet taken root; it hasn’t yet reached out and gripped, with a solid, vice like grip, into the earth.

Those root systems are amazing. Not only do they grow steadily downwards and outwards to seek out nutrients and water to feed the tree, but as they grow, in order to feed, they take hold of the soil so that they can’t be torn out of the ground in a storm.

And that, my friend is the picture of how things are meant to be when you and I discover the love of God. As we saw earlier, we are meant to put our roots down deep. Let’s take another look at what the Apostle Paul writes and really let it sink into our hearts. Verse 17:

That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith as you are being rooted and grounded in love.

And the way this happens is when we give Christ full sway in our hearts. Then like the tree, we put our roots down and become rooted and grounded in His love. Will you please notice with me, very carefully here, the Apostle Paul’s words – he speaks about us becoming both “rooted” and “grounded” in love.

Now, “rooted” speaks of the tree’s need to be nourished and so what it does is that it sends out this unbelievable network of roots, thicker ones branching into yet thinner ones and thinner ones still, ever further afield, ever deeper into the rich moist soil in order to drink in the nutrients and the water that will cause the superstructure of the tree – that part that you and I can see – to grow.

Now, imagine with me if you will, a lazy tree; a stubborn tree; a tree that refuses to send down its roots; a tree that refuses to be rooted in its soil. Imagine a tree whose pot bound roots just remain that coiled around a small root ball. Is this going to put forth lush, rich growth? Probably not. It will be likely be stunted; a sickly looking specimen with mean branches that don’t reach their full potential. Any fruit that does grow those branches, one thing is for certain, it won’t be the sort of fruit that it ought to be. It won’t be rich and sweet and brightly coloured; neither pleasant to the eye or palate.

This is the Christian whose roots have not gone down into the love of Christ. He or she is not rooted in the love of God. Well, may they occupy a pew each Sunday, apparently content to take up space, but beneath the surface there is no passion for Christ. Beneath the surface there isn’t a longing to draw away quietly and pray. Beneath the surface, there is no hunger for the Word of God. The roots aren’t reaching out into the love of God and so, what we have, is at best, a sickly specimen.

And as well as not being “rooted” in the love of God, neither is this Christian “grounded” in His love. Now the meaning of this word “grounded” is that the tree becomes stable and established. It has solid foundations, able to withstand a storm; able to withstand the tsunamis of life. And it turns out that being grounded is clearly a by-product of being rooted. See, the tree has sent out this massive root network, ever branching into smaller and thinner branches until mere capillaries nestle between the grains of the earth, sucking nutrition and water from the ground.

And all the while, as it is feeding the tree, this intricate root network, laid down, branch by branch, is taking a grip of the soil – a vice-like grip – something that anyone who has ever sought to uproot a tree will already have discovered. As we become rooted in Christ’s love – fed, nurtured and nourished by His love, so we become grounded in His love – solid, secure, able to withstand the storms of life.

That’s the picture here – the picture of a healthy tree. And as these roots reach out, ever further, ever deeper, here the prayer of Paul goes on for you and me, that in so doing:

… we may have the power to comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Here’s the picture: the tree’s roots keep spreading out – outwards and downwards into the love of Christ, to their full breadth and their full depth and the tree keeps growing ever higher as the roots keep going ever deeper. And what the tree is discovering – what we are discovering – is that by finding no limits to God’s love, in any direction, we are in fact, laying hold in our experience of the incomprehensively, infinite love of God as day-by-day, we search out His love.

Just as roots search for food and water, the branches search upwards for sunlight, we never run into the limits of His love – in any direction. And it’s only thus that we can know that which surpasses knowledge: the love of Christ.

That’s what this passage means! How does that compare do you think, to the lazy, pot-bound tree who just curls up its roots around this tiny root ball and fails to reach out in faith and go looking. It makes we want to scream sometimes; it makes me want to shake people who are living their lives like that, as a pot-bound Christian in the Kingdom of God.

Wake up!! Don’t you get it? We are meant to discover the amazing love of Jesus Christ by stretching out to Him – by praying and having quiet times and reading and drinking in the nutrients of His Word – letting the Spirit pump them around our spirits and souls as the sap brings life to the newest of buds on the farthest reaches of the tallest branches of the largest trees.

Have you ever asked yourself – what is love? I mean – exactly what is it? We know it’s important. Yet strangely very few people ever stop to think what it is. And because of the programming we get from Hollywood and the advertising industry – we end up with this distorted idea that love is a feeling … and that’s where things start heading off the tracks.

Unconditional Love

Have you ever asked yourself: what is love? I mean, exactly what is it? What do I think it is? What do you think it is? When someone says that word “love” to you, what ideas spring to mind? Interesting question! Because love is probably the most sung about, written about thing on this planet. The Beetles famous song, “All You Need is Love”, says it all. And we know that love is incredibly important – from the moment we are born until the moment we die, we need love.

And yet so many of us; we have a distorted view of what love actually is. Hollywood and Bollywood have a lot to do with that. They make love out to be this kind of “cloud nine” romance thing. “Knight in shining armour saves maiden in distress!” “Pretty Woman” – not sure if you saw that movie with Richard Geer and Julia Roberts – is that exact concept of ‘love’ in a nutshell.

And hey, romance is wonderful! Hopefully our marriages are full of romance. But no life; no marriage is one long, romantic interlude. And so if Hollywood or Bollywood have programmed us to believe that love is a “feeling”; that love is romance; that love is a 24/7 high, then we have a serious problem, you and I, because that side of love is but one small part of it. And if we expect all love to be like that, then, my friend, you and I are going to be sadly, very sadly disappointed.

So many people in this world feel unloved and in turn, feel inadequate to love others. And as I look at life, you know, I think giving love is something that we learn by receiving love – in the right sort of way. As we grow up into adults, for instance, the reason we are able to bring children into the world and love them and nurture them, is because our parents taught us how to do that by loving and nurturing us. And if they did a bad job of that, then in all likelihood, their bad habits are going to find themselves in the relationships we have with our own children.

But back to the fact that so many people in this world feel unloved and in a world where we are told, “Love is All You Need”, that’s pretty tragic. You can’t enjoy your life without experiencing love; without being on the receiving end of love. And as we will see next week on the programme, I don’t believe we can enjoy our lives without giving out love as well.

Love is a two sided coin, so what exactly is love? Is it just feeling as the songs and the movies would have us believe? Well, let’s spend some time looking at a definition of love – not so much a definition but a description of love in action. It’s something that the Apostle Paul wrote to his friends at a church in Corinth, a couple of thousand years ago. Let’s have a listen to a bit of it – First Corinthians chapter 13, beginning at verse 1 – Paul writes:

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

It’s a beautiful description of what love is, but interesting, is the sort of love that he is talking about here. There are three different types of love spoken about in the New Testament. The first is the love between a man and a woman – the Greek word there is “eros”, from which we get English words like ‘erotic’. That’s not the sort of love that Paul is talking about here.

The next sort of love that the New Testament speaks about is the bond of friendship; again the Greek word is “phileo”. That isn’t the sort of love that Paul is talking about here either. And the third one is “agape” which is deep, unconditional love. Whenever the Bible speaks of God’s love for us, it invariably is talking about this kind of love – agape – unconditional love.

And you know, when you think about it, for love to have any real value in a “throwaway” society, where marriages are thrown away almost half the time, where people are rejected almost all the time, the only sort of love that truly has value is unconditional love – the sort of love that accepts us for who we are, no matter what we do.

And that is precisely the sort of love that God is speaking to us about here through the Apostle Paul. And He begins by making the point that it doesn’t matter how clever, gifted, talented or generous we are, without unconditional love we are completely worthless.

If I speak in tongues of mortals and of angels, but don’t have love, I’m just a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and have all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so I can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

I spent much of my life being incredibly clever and incredibly unloving. And if you asked me now, I’d tell you I completely agree with what Paul is saying here. I look on that part of my life, not as a complete loss, but very much a series of lost opportunities. Without unconditional love, no matter what we do, we are nothing more than a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. Nothing!!

Look around; look at the clever people you know who are rude and arrogant and unloving – would you agree with Paul here? And then he launches into these beautiful few verses of what “agape” love; what unconditional love actually is:

It’s patient; it’s kind; it’s not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

Now we are going to unpack that a whole bunch more later, but just at the moment, let’s not do that – let’s just stand back and look at the whole thing as one. Let me ask you this, if someone loved you in this way; if someone humbled themselves, made themselves to be low in order to love you with patience and kindness, not insisting on their own way, not being irritable or resentful, believing for the best out of you – bearing all your burdens, enduring through everything without end – let me ask you – would that make a difference in your life?

If someone were to pull alongside you and share the burdens of your life with you in a way that they never accused you or judged you or had a go at you, well, it would be like winning the lottery wouldn’t it? It would make absolutely all the difference. It would add a dimension and a richness to life that is difficult to put into words. Jesus is that person! Jesus said: Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 to 30. He said:

Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Jesus is the One who with that sort of unconditional love, hitches up beside us on our journey to help carry our load; to guide and steer and encourage and love us with an unconditional love. And if we should ever doubt that, we need but cast our eyes down to the scars on His hands and His feet. For this Jesus who was and is the Son of God is the same One who made Himself to be as nothing for our sakes. And it’s this same Jesus, who rather than insisting on His rights, humbly draws alongside us to travel along our journey with us, with His shoulders to the yoke to help us bear our burdens – to lighten the burden so that we can discover His love – not just as a matter of historical fact, but as a matter of real life; practical day to day experience on that dusty road we call life.

To Die For

Earlier we were taking a look at exactly what love is. We all need love; we all search for love and in our own different ways, we try to give love out too, albeit at often times, we do it rather imperfectly. And whilst Hollywood and Bollywood try to tell us that love is a feeling, we know that feelings come and go. They go up, they go down and that’s just the way life is. And so when we chase the “feeling” of love; if all we think love is, is a feeling, then we are going to be sadly disappointed.

And that’s why we have been looking at real love on the programme. The sort of love God has for us – unconditional love; love that never fails. And forgive me for reading it again but this short passage, as I read it and chew it over and just rest in it for a while, blows me away. First Corinthians chapter 13, beginning at verse 4:

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

And right now, I’d just love for us to sojourn in this passage for a while – to let it sink in. Let it sink in that this is precisely the sort of love with which God loves you and God loves me – unconditional love. Love that speaks to us through what God does – the tender, personal love of God is something that is so real in my life. I mean, I go through tough things in my life, just as you do. There are days I wake up wondering, ‘Is God still in this place with me?’ Fewer days these days than maybe five or ten years ago, but have you noticed when the reality of life kind of smacks you in the face, it’s something of an effort to connect our hearts and our minds with the unseen reality of this loving God?

Anyone who says any different is lying. But what I’m discovering along my journey is that, day by day, as I experience the love of God – through His forgiveness, through His provision, through His protection – He becomes more and more real to me. So that, when some crisis punches you in the gut – as crises are prone to do – it becomes easier and easier simply to turn to God and to trust Him.

And one of the most important things I have been needing to get through my thick scull is that God isn’t some grumpy old man, sitting there judging me; waiting to pounce on me the moment I set a foot wrong because that’s the pervading picture of God that I grew up with in my head. Yea, He is God, yes, He has the power to snuff me out in an instant – of course He does. He can sentence me to an eternity without Him. I know all those things which are why His grace and His mercy are so profoundly beautiful to me.

And that’s why, as I read this description of what love is – written by the Apostle Paul, all those years ago, my hearts melts and I rest easy because I know that God is love. And if this is what love is, then this is what God is. My God is patient with me – man, just as well because pretty much, not a single day goes by when I don’t set a foot wrong; when I don’t have a feeling or a thought; when I don’t do something that doesn’t honour Him. So He is patient with me and He is kind to me. That’s the first thing about His love – patience and kindness towards me, towards you. Can you believe that?

Now God being God, could be envious, He could be boastful, He could be arrogant towards us, He could be rude to us – given what I have done, He has every right. But He chooses not to be. He chooses to be patient and kind. Patience is interesting because it involves sacrifice – God lays down what He is entitled to – He is entitled to my full, one hundred percent, 24/7 obedience and loyalty. He lays that down and when He doesn’t get it, He looks at me with love in His heart and He waits.

That blows me away! He doesn’t insist on His own way; He doesn’t get all vengeful with me when I get it wrong; He doesn’t get scratchy and irritable; He doesn’t resent me. Resentfulness, you understand, is like cancer in a relationship. There are none of those things from God when it comes to you and me.

And you know how, when someone is rubbing you the wrong way and you are getting resentful and then some misfortune befalls that person quietly on the inside, we tend to go, “You beauty, serves him right.” Well, not God – He doesn’t rejoice in wrong doing; He doesn’t rejoice in our misfortune; He isn’t happy when we get our just deserts, instead He rejoices in the truth.

He looks at His Son on that cross; the truth of His love and mercy and kindness and the desire of His heart; the greatest joy of His heart, is to see us get that. That’s what He rejoices in when, as we stumble along our journey. We begin to scratch the surface of the truth that God is love.

And so no matter what we do, you and me, no matter how bad things get, He bears all things; all our sin, through those nails that tore through the flesh of His Son; He bears all things. And He believes all things and He hopes all things for us. He knows the future; He sees the best in us. He nudges us, gently towards His best with a certain hope that we will find it. All the way, bearing all things and enduring all things for us. And because through Jesus, His love for us is totally unconditional because Jesus paid the price for each and every one of the things I have done, am doing and will do which dishonor God, which fall short of His glory.

And because that’s the basis of His love for you and me, Paul is able to finish off this beautiful passage on love with this:

Love never ends.

Well, at least, not the sort of love that God is talking about here. And when you think about it, the perfect love of God – because it is absolutely unconditional – has no reason to end:

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

God’s love never ends. Let this blow your socks off today! I mean, there are so many people walking around on this planet who believe in God but whose lives have never been rocked to the core by the unconditional love of God. Friend, be rocked to the core today; be moved to tears; be overwhelmed, as the Spirit of the living God pours His love out into your heart. Romans chapter 5, beginning at verse 5, says this:

… hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. For while we were still weak, just at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

And when we let God embrace us with the reality of this love, my friend, our whole world changes. All of a sudden we are safe; all of a sudden we are secure; all of a sudden we know that we know that we know that no matter what we have done in our lives; no matter how badly we have failed God; no matter what we may be addicted to; no matter what bad thing may seem to have this overwhelming power over our lives right at this minute, that the love of God is real – it is absolutely unconditional. It is for you and it is for me and it is free because of Jesus.

Want proof? Look at the cross:

God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

May the Spirit of God drench your life in this reality. May He open your eyes and fill your heart with wonder and joy because it is for this very reason that Jesus died and rose again for you.

The Reality of Love

One of the things that I am incredibly passionate about is for people not just to know “about” the love of God but to experience it because experiencing God’s love is what changes our lives. Knowing about God’s love is an important first step, but if we never take the next step of stepping into His love and experiencing His love, then we are left with that uneasy feeling that, “Well, there must be something more.” That’s because there is more!!

There’s God’s love which is there for us to live in and to experience. Some people get a bit twichy at that. They think that I am one of these guys who thinks that the only way to live life is kind of swinging off chandeliers – always on a high. Berni, is that what you are saying? No! Absolutely not!

In fact, as we travel through the ups and the downs of life, as we all do, what I have discovered is that the most important places to experience God’s love is at the low points – in the dark places; in those times when the storm clouds are rolling in, that’s when I want to be living in God’s love more than any other time. Wouldn’t you agree?

And so, I want to encourage you today, not to settle for a distant knowledge of God’s love. Let me say it again: I don’t want you to settle for a distant knowledge of God’s love. I want to encourage you not to settle for some second-rate life which is lived at a distance from God’s love because our lives are not meant to be lived that way.

Over and over and over again God’s Word proclaims His steadfast love. Let me take you to just one example: Psalm 89:

I will sing of your steadfast love, O LORD, forever; with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to generations. 

I declare that your steadfast love is established forever; your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.

And if you read on in this Psalm, this was written by someone who was going through an incredibly difficult time. It was a time when it appeared that God had forgotten him and all this stuff was happening, which seemed to fly completely against the promises of God. And that word “steadfast” means literally “goodness, faithfulness, kindness, solid as a rock, unconditional.”

But the question is: how do we experience that love? Well, I have only discovered one way – each day I spend some time with Jesus in the mornings – quietly praying, reading His Word, listening. And when I step out into whatever life holds for me that day, I step out on the basis that, whatever I see; whatever I experience; whatever I feel, even if it flies completely in the face of God’s promises, no matter. The love of God for me is rock solid! NOTHING can separate us from His love – absolutely nothing!

And with that simple, child-like faith, you wouldn’t believe what’s possible; you wouldn’t believe how God shows up again and again, by His Spirit – to provide, to remove obstacles, to comfort, to guide. Now there are people listening today who have been living their lives like this for longer than I have – that’s for sure. But in my short walk with Jesus, heading on now to just a couple of decades, I have discovered His love in reality. I have experience His presence in my life; I have seen Him at work along my journey. Jesus yoked up beside me, carrying my burdens, just as He promised.

Let me encourage you today: do not settle for a second rate life. Do not settle for a life without Jesus being the dominant reality in your experience. Why would we do that, when He came to die and rise again to bring us close to God? That’s what God’s Word says: that those of us who were once far off, are brought near to God by the blood of Christ. He purchased this intimacy for us with His life. Why would we miss out on that?

May the Lord truly bless you as you experience His love in your walk with Him, day by day, by day. Every step along the way may you truly by blessed.

Have you ever needed a special touch from God? You know – the world’s telling you you’re worthless. Everything’s going against you. You feel overlooked and left behind – Jesus has obviously forgotten all about you. I think we’ve all been there.

The Reason Jesus Came

Over the last few weeks we’ve been talking about love, a special kind of love – God’s love. And unlike human love God’s love never fails. He never leaves us or forsakes us and with all the bumps and bruises and the scars we’ve been left with as we’ve travelled along that bumpy road we call life, that’s something you and I really need.

We all have fears and insecurities, okay some more than others, but we all have them. But God doesn’t want us to be afraid, He doesn’t want us to be insecure. Have a listen to this, 1 John chapter 4, verses 16 to 19:

God is love and those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them. Now there’s no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears hasn’t reached perfection in love and with love because he first loved us.

I love that. God is love and if we abide, if we dwell and fellowship with God we’ll know that love. And get this, the perfect love of God casts out all fear. So we don’t have to be afraid anymore or insecure anymore or worried about anything anymore because it turns out that love, perfect love, God’s love, is like a healing balm. God’s love, when we live in it, dwell in it, abide in it sets us free from fear.

You know what, that sounds fantastic and if it is true we all need that. So here’s the plan. Let’s spend a bit of time exploring this healing love of God today. Healing and restoration is precisely the reason that Jesus came. The very first time that Jesus got up to speak in a Synagogue (or at least it’s the first time following His launch into His public ministry) He chose to read from the Book of Isaiah and this is how it all went down. Luke chapter 4, verses 17 to 21:

He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, ‘The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, he has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind. To let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lords favour.’ And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of all in the Synagogue were fixed on Jesus. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

See, He starts off with the poor. Can I tell you? The poor were despised and marginalised and ostracised. The poor weren’t, by and large, the ones filling that Synagogue that day in Nazareth but He came to bring them … them!! the poor! … good news. Release to the captives, the people in prison, the people no one bothers with and sight for the blind, there were beggars out there on the street, no welfare cheques in the mail for them. The very first thing that Jesus gets up and says about Himself is that He came to bring healing to the least of the least.

And isn’t that often how we feel? Sure there may well be poor people, imprisoned people, blind people, oppressed people listening today. In fact I know without a shadow of any doubt that there are and there is a listening clearly to what’s going on here.

But what about those who don’t quite fall into that category? What about those who are comfortable middle class suburbanites commuting on the tube in London or driving home in the traffic in Chicago or resting on a beach somewhere in the Pacific? What about those people and there are plenty of those listening today as well?

Well, this passage from the Book of Isaiah that Jesus read there actually in full has much more to say. It talks of binding up the broken-hearted; proclaiming liberty to the captives; release to prisoners; comfort for all those who mourn; to give us a garland, a wreath of flowers instead of ashes; the oil of gladness instead of mourning; the mantel of praise instead of a faint spirit; to repair the devastations of the past.

Now, why wasn’t it quoted in full there by Luke? Because those guys lived in a oral culture and so he quoted what he remembered but you can be sure that if Jesus was reading from chapter 61, the Book of Isaiah that day then this is what He read. This is what He said about Himself.

He came to bring healing and restoration to you and to me. Lets just let that sink in. Is any of us broken hearted today? Do any of us have devastations of the past that need rebuilding? Is anyone today mourning? Does anyone need the oil of gladness? Does anyone need a mantel of praise instead of a faint spirit? Well?

I think we’ve pretty much covered everybody there with that list. Does that mean Jesus is only here for the losers? No. That’s what the sceptics will tell you. The point is we all have things that happen to us along the way that require healing. Things that sometimes are our own fault but sometimes they’re not and we’re left with wounds and scars and hurts and devastations from the past. See this is universal, rich and poor, black and white, Jesus came for all of us to bind up the broken hearted among us.

Can I tell you? I look back to a devastating time in my life when I was broken hearted and the only person who could make any difference in that place was Jesus. Nothing anybody else said or did could have any impact at all and you know that’s how it often is. The only thing that could make an impact, the only thing that can heal us is the healing balm of God’s own love. Totally accepting, totally loving, totally faithful, powerful beyond measures to drive out darkness and fear.

And you know the sad thing; so many people don’t believe that this kind of love is actually for them. It’s as though it’s for others but surely it’s not for me because I must come somewhere really low down on the pecking order. I mean surely God would go to the super spiritual people before me. Surely God wouldn’t have time to get as far down the list as me which is why Jesus when He stood up for the first time in public ministry read from Isaiah and declared for all the world that He came for the poor, the oppressed, the captives, the blind, the broken hearted, the least of the least.

What He was saying is that He came for everyone including you and me. And friend, that’s why today we’re going to meet two of those people, a leper and a woman with a terrible disease because I believe, I believe that Jesus through His word wants His love to become real in your life.

He Reached Out with Compassion

Now we can talk about the love of God in theory but what about in our own experience, what about in your experience? I wonder whether you, like me, from time to time find yourself in a place where the last thing you expect to find is God’s saving love? I wonder whether you, like me, have had times when you’ve lost sight of the unfailing love of God.

Well if that’s you then I have something special for you right now. I think we each have one particular story from the Bible that more than other story resonates with us. For me it comes from the 1st chapter of Marks Gospel.

I’d not long been a Christian, probably no more than a year and I was already at Bible College, don’t ask me, God had a plan and at that point I just grabbed hold and hung on. And so there I was studying at Bible College when one of the compulsory subjects I had to take was evangelism.

Okay, I needed the tick in the box. I could sit through a whole semester of lectures but, hang on a minute look at the timetable, next semester I can take it as a intensive. And what that meant was that I could attend for two weekends, get all the lectures on those weekends, do the assignments and hey bingo I had a tick in the box for the subject of evangelism. Pretty good plan so that’s exactly what I did.

I got to the first intensive, it started on a Friday morning and I met the visiting lecturer, a long hair, bearded, ex-heroin-addicted bikie who now had a couple of PhD’s to his name. Theology and cultural anthropology. Pretty impressive. The lectures began and even though it was really hot and humid, I have to tell you, I was absolutely riveted. And as we came to the end of the day it was as though for the very first time someone had opened the lid to the box labelled ‘God’s love for me’ and I was completely overwhelmed.

And for that night the lecturer set us an assignment to read one of the Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke or John – from beginning to end. He happened to mention that Mark was the shortest of the four so you guessed it, I chose Mark. That night I started to read and I wasn’t long into it when I came across the story of a leper. It’s only a very short story but this one story was the turning point of my life. Mark chapter 1 beginning at verse 40:

A leper came to Jesus begging him and kneeling he said, ‘if you choose you can make me clean’. Moved with compassion Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, ‘I do choose, be made clean’. Immediately the leprosy left him and he was made clean.

After sternly warning him he sent him away at once saying to him, ‘see that you say nothing to anyone but go and show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded as a testimony to them’. But this man went out and began to proclaim freely and to spread the word so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly but had to stay out in the country and the people came to him from every quarter.

See right there in that moment it hit me, that I was that leper! I was that leper, not only in my own eyes but in God’s eyes. You see the moment I met Jesus, the moment I accepted Him, something started really, really bothering me. And frankly from time to time since then it’s come back to haunt me. It’s this, that I’m simply not worthy of God. I mean, I’m not. The more I get to know Him I, like the Apostle Paul, the more aware I become of my sinfulness. I truly am not worthy. But back then it struck me for the very first time that my sin was a rancid stench in the nostrils of God just like the pus filled sores of the leper was a stench in the nostrils of Jesus.

This leper back then was an outcast. He couldn’t approach anyone who wasn’t a leper unless he yelled out at sixty or seventy paces, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ He lived in a slum outside the protection of the city walls with the other lepers, and as much as I came to the realisation that I wasn’t worthy to approach God, this leper already knew that about himself. Everything in his culture, in his society, in his religion told him he was not worthy to approach Jesus.

So what does he do? He approaches Jesus anyway. He throws himself down at Jesus’ feet, kneels down before Him and begs:

If you choose you can make me clean.

Do you see that? Nothing was going to stop this guy. Not his religion, not the law, not social customs, not the loss of his own dignity, nothing. He cast himself off on the mercy of God that day and Jesus, listen to this carefully:

Moved with compassion Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him and said to him, ‘I do choose, be made clean’.

Jesus was moved with compassion. The love of God reached out and did the one thing that nobody else on this planet would have done in that moment. The love of God reached out and touched the leper and in that loving compassion at reaching out and touching was the healing love, the healing power of God. And my friend the only reason that this leper is before you today, me, is that I too was so touched by the love of God.

Do you notice what happens straight after this? Jesus tells the man, “Look don’t go and tell anyone else about this, just go and tell the priest so according to the law they can declare you clean and you can make sacrifices.” But the guy, well I mean he’s over the moon. He’s not going to go and see any priest. He races into town, to his former friends and family, people he’s been separated from for who knows how long and he shouts the good news from the roof tops. “I’m clean! I’m clean!” A leper no more. Healed, restored, back in a relationship with his family and his community. Can you blame the guy?

And do you notice this healing touch came to the least of the least, the most marginalised and rejected of outcasts? It came to the leper. This is the healing love of God. This is the love that will touch us and heal us in a way that nothing else and nobody else can and friend, it’s for me and it’s for you.

Are you feeling inadequate? Are you feeling unworthy? Are you feeling as though, well God couldn’t possibly want to touch me? Is that where you’re at? Then let me encourage you, be the leper. Ignore logic, ignore rules, ignore the law, ignore what other people think, ignore what you may think of yourself and cast yourself at Jesus feet, impose yourself on Jesus grace and friend I guarantee you when you come thus before your Lord He will again be moved with compassion, He will again reach out His hand and touch the leper and say to you, “I do choose, be made clean.”

See there’s only one question, what on earth are you waiting for?

She Reached Out in Despair

Earlier we met a leper who knew that by every law and custom and whatever else that he’d been brought up with the last thing he should do was to approach someone who wasn’t a leper. He was required when he was yet sixty or seventy paces away from someone to yell out at the top of his lungs, “Unclean,! Unclean!” to warn the other people not to come near.

You and I, we can scarcely fathom how that must have hurt him, how that must have torn at his soul. And despite this he threw himself at Jesus feet. He ignored protocol and cast himself on the mercy of God.

Well, right now we’re going to meet a woman. She too was unclean for a different reason and she too came to Jesus for healing but in a different way. Let’s have a listen to her story. Mark chapter 5 beginning at verse 22:

One of the leaders of the Synagogue named Jairus came and when he saw Jesus fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death, come and lay hands on her so that she may be well and live’. So Jesus went with him and a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who’d been suffering from haemorrhages for over twelve years. She’d endured so much under so many physicians and she spent all that she had and she was no better but rather she grew worse.

She’d heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak for she said, ‘If I can just touch his clothes I’ll be made well’. Immediately her haemorrhage stopped and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease but immediately where the power had gone forth from him Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘who touched my clothes?’ And his disciples said to him, ‘Do you see the crowd pressing in on you? How can you say who touched my clothes?

He looked around to see who had done it but the woman knowing what had happened to her came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease.

Now, think about this. Being unclean was a big deal and because of her constant bleeding. According to the law of the Old Testament this woman was unclean, and anyone or anything she touched became unclean. And if you’re unclean you couldn’t go and worship God in the Synagogue or the Temple, that’s it in a nutshell. So she, aside from probably being quite smelly given that they didn’t have all the mod cons that some of us have come to accept today, she was an outcast because she was literally unclean according to the law of God.

Isolated, no husband, poor, no one to protect her or provide for her. Twelve years. Pain, suffering, rejection, isolation and then she hears that Jesus is coming to town. We don’t quite know what went through her mind but my hunch is that after all the Doctors, all the years of suffering, losing all her money trying to get healed she’s completely at the end of her tether.

So she takes the bit between her teeth. She’s heard about His miracles, maybe she seen Him perform the odd one, perhaps she knows someone who’d been healed so she sets out that day with pretty much nothing to lose. But when she gets to where Jesus is He’s surrounded by a massive crowd. I mean everybody else had pretty much the same idea that day too: “Let’s go check out this Jesus guy who’s supposed to be healing all these people.” And at the top of the heap, at least one hundred and fifty pegs higher than this woman in the pecking order, is the leader of the local Synagogue, Jairus, whose daughter is on her death bed.

Imagine how this woman felt. The crowd; Jairus; I mean Jesus was obviously going with Jairus, what hope was there? Well just one. If Jesus wasn’t going to see her and reach out to her as He did with the leper, well you know what, she could see Him and maybe, just maybe, she could squeeze through the crowd and reach Him and touch His clothes. Hey what’s she got to lose?

She heard about Jesus and came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His cloak for she said, “If I can but touch His clothes I’ll be made well.” Immediately her haemorrhage stopped and she felt in her body that she was healed. And no one, no one other than herself knew. I mean, this was perfect. She could slip away anonymously. She touched the healing love of God, she’d been healed, now she could get on with her life. No one need know that she, this unclean woman, had touched so many people in the crowd and made them unclean. Hey, this is perfecto!

But Jesus knew. Jesus had been touched by someone in the crowd. The one person who for whatever reason, whatever her thinking was, had come with a faith beyond a faith, a hope beyond a hope in the healing love of God and it was through that faith and that hope and that determination that she lay hold of the power of God for the power flowed out of Him and into her by faith.

No one else got it. The disciples who should have got it were incredulous. “What do you mean someone touched you, give me a break? You’re surrounded by a huge crowd.” But Jesus singled her out, she told her whole story and He said to her:

Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease.

Through this woman He taught the crowd, He taught you and me this two thousand years on, that His saving love, His powerful love, His healing love is for everyone. From the greatest, Jairus, to the least, this woman whose name we will never even know.

Friend, sometimes He heals our physical infirmities and sometimes He doesn’t but here’s what I’ve noticed about Jesus, whenever we come to Him with just a mustard seed of faith His compassion, His love, His healing will touch us in ways we simply can’t imagine. The point is that His love heals and restores according to His sovereign will and purpose and I’ve never met one person who’s said that they’ve been worse off for having pushed through the crowd to touch His cloak. I’ve never met anyone who’s said, “Man, I wish I’d never touched Jesus.”

And so often the ones who touch Him are the ones called to trials and challenges in serving Him but even those, those who suffer have come to experience the indescribable and glorious joy of knowing Jesus. And that my friend is worth so much more than anything else that you or I will ever find on this earth.

I don’t know about you, but those parts of God’s Word where He talks about the love He has for me and how He wants to pour it out on me – I love those. Can’t get enough of them. But then when He talks about how He wants me to sacrifice myself to love others … to be honest, sometimes, I could happily skim over those. Problem is, when we do that, we miss out on what love is all about.

The Love that Gives

Well, how are you today? I hope that if you have been able to join me these last few weeks on the programme, you have been as touched and as moved by the love of God as I have. There is something so special about God’s love – it never fails. We have seen too, how that love is for everyone – EVERYONE – who would come to Jesus and ask for His forgiveness and His help.

That leper who we met the other week, who cut through every legal, religious and social barrier to kneel down at Jesus’ feet and say to Him, “Lord, if you are willing you can make me clean,” and Jesus, moved with compassion, reached out and touched him and said, “I am willing. Be made clean.”

And the unclean woman who had been haemorrhaging for twelve years, who pressed through the crowd to touch Jesus’ cloak and was healed through her faith and His power and His love. This healing love isn’t just for the greatest; it’s also for the least – the poor, the lame, the blind, the marginalised, the prisoners, the broken hearted – it’s for everyone. And everyone includes you and me.

But here’s the thing and it’s an odd thing: love is only love when we give it away. If it just flows in without ever flowing out, it becomes stagnant and eventually it dies. So today, I’d like to take a look at what we should do with this amazing love that God pours out on us because when we start doing something with that love, it’s only then that our lives become rich and fulfilled.

It’s interesting how often God’s Word talks about the inflow and the outflow of love. It happens quite a bit, although us being who we are, we kind of lap up the bits about God’s love being poured onto us, but when it comes to us – you and me – sacrificing our lives so that His love can be poured out on others. Well, that’s not so much what we want to hear. If you happen to go to church, let me ask you: when was the last time you heard a message or a sermon on this passage – First John chapter 3, verse 16:

We know love by this: that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.

Yea, right! We don’t much like that second bit, but surprisingly it is in that second bit that we discover our purpose in life. And when we live out that purpose we discover fulfilment and contentment. And those are commodities everyone is looking for, only to discover that, when you look in the wrong places, they are very much in short supply.

But in the Kingdom of God, in God’s economy, there’s more than enough fulfilment and contentment to go around. So let’s unpack this a bit and see if we can’t get some more fulfilment and contentment happening in your life and in mine.

So let’s explore this link between living out God’s love – letting it flow out of us – and contentment and satisfaction because they are intrinsically linked. Let’s pick it up again – First John chapter 4, beginning at verse 15:

God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them …

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us.

Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

So, first up when we believe in Jesus, it’s not about some distant belief; it’s about God abiding in us and us abiding in Him. Great word that “abiding” – it means to move in, to stay; it means an intimate setting up of our lives together. And because God is love, then when He dwells in us, His saving love dwells in us too. For me and for everyone else too, that means having a relationship with Him; it means trusting Him, praying, reading His Word, listening, enjoying, living our lives for Him, making decisions that honour Jesus.

That’s what ‘abiding’ means. And then what we discover in that place is this amazing love – it just floods over us and envelopes us and we blossom and we thrive in it. Because not only do we experience the love of Jesus who died so that we could be forgiven, we experience the love of Jesus who rose again and through that we have a new life and that new life – coming with all the ups and downs, for sure – that new life, living, dwelling, abiding in the love of this awesome God.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.

Forgiven, no longer afraid; blessed, absolutely awesome! And friend, if you believe in Jesus but that’s not the sort of life you are having, then it’s time to do some abiding because whatever our circumstances; He wants us to rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy.

But right following on from this description of this fantastic love is the outworking of that love in our lives. Please listen carefully with me to this: First John chapter 4, beginning at verse 19:

We love because he first loved us. Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters too.

What God is saying to us here through the Apostle John, is this: if you are experiencing the love of God, I mean truly, really, powerfully in your life, then you won’t be able to help yourself. You will end up loving others because He first loved you and if we kid ourselves by saying, “Hey, I love God,” without living God’s love out in our lives, then we are liars. You can’t help it! Immerse yourself in God’s love and the natural, inevitable consequence of that love is love for others.

And here’s the exciting bit: I was made to love people one way and you were made to love in another way. Romans chapter 12, verses 4 to 8 – we are not going to go there right now – but that sets out all the different gifts that we have. You and I are different. And God’s plan is that we live out who we are by loving other people. If you read those giftings in Romans chapter 4, you will discover that one of them is to be a leader – that’s what I am – and the way I love other people is by using my strength to get things done for them. You may be an encourager and the way you love them is by encouraging them and so on.

Is it hard sometimes? Absolutely!! If you spent any time with me, you might just find – from time to time – that I’m difficult to love. And vice versa, right? The point is: even when we are still struggling or hurting in our lives, one of the greatest things we can do is to take as much of God’s love as we have experienced so far in our abiding with Him and go and love other people with it, using the gifts and motivations and talents that God has given us. And when we do that, it is absolutely awesome.

First, those other people get blessed by what God has given through us. And the crazy thing is, we get blessed too because finally we are living the life God always meant for us to live. Do you see? Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10:

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, to do the good works that God prepared beforehand for us to walk into.

And if perhaps God’s love is feeling a bit stale in your life at the moment, it’s time to go and give some of it away. There’s a reason for that: because faith without works is dead. Go give it away; go sacrifice for others, then all of a sudden, it comes back to life again. It’s the way God planned for it to be.

The Ripple Effect

Well, over these last few weeks we have been exploring the saving love God through Jesus. This love that is completely unconditional; this love that surpasses all understanding; that goes way beyond anything we could ever have imagined. I guess that’s why the Apostle Paul wrote these words with such incredible passion: Ephesians chapter 3, beginning at verse 18:

I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

And the exciting thing is that as we reach out day by day; as a tree’s branches reach upwards towards the sun and as its roots reach ever deeper and wider into the rich, moist earth, what we discover is that whatever direction we go – upwards, downwards, outwards in His love – we discover in our own experience, that His love has no limits. We never run into any boundaries; there’s never a point as which His love stops.

And that’s how we “know the love of God which surpasses all knowledge,” as we discover in our very own experience, that His love is infinite. But as we saw earlier, unless we do something with this love; unless we bear fruit, then ultimately our faith dies. “Faith,” after all, “without works, is dead,” James chapter 2, verse 20.

So, what do we do with this love? How do we allow it flow out of us into a lost and hurting world? Jesus said this to His disciples – John chapter 15, verse 16:

You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.

So, a tree is meant to bear fruit and when we become rooted and grounded in Christ’s love; as we spread out our branches into the fresh, sunlit air; as our roots go deeper and deeper into the rich, moist, fertile earth of His love; as we become established and grow in Christ, so we are meant to bear fruit. It is a natural consequence of being loved by Him and of loving Him. That’s what we saw earlier. First John chapter 4, verse 19:

We love because he first loved us.

And so right now, I would like to introduce you to a man who went through a radical transformation because Jesus came into his life. And in particular we are going to explore what Jesus told him to go and do, after his life had been transformed. That man … that man is known to many as the Gerasene demoniac. Let’s listen to his story. Mark chapter 5, beginning at verse 1:

They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit, met him. He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him anymore, even with a chain; for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke into pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. 

When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; and he shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” For he had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country.

Now there on the hillside, a great herd of swine was feeding; and the unclean spirits begged Jesus, “Send us into the swine; let us enter them.” So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea.

The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it. Then they began to ask and beg Jesus to leave their neighbourhood.
As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might go with Jesus. But Jesus refused, and said to him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.” And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.”

I mean, it’s amazing stuff! This man was absolutely crazy and completely out of control. There were no mental institutions in those days and every attempt to chain him had failed. So he had been consigned to living out of town amongst the graves like an animal. All because the devil had got hold of his life and possessed him with many demons. Of course, Jesus had the power to cast these demons out, which He did, rather spectacularly. As a result a whole herd of pigs throws itself off a cliff.

The locals were delighted of course and as He was leaving, this demoniac – former demoniac – comes to Jesus with such incredible gratitude. For the first time in goodness knows how long, he is free! He is so grateful he wants to follow Jesus wherever He goes. Why did Jesus set this man free? Because the heart of God is filled with healing love that He would pour out upon even on the most unfortunate wretch.

The healing love of God flowed through Jesus into this man’s life and now he wants to repay Jesus by becoming one of His disciples. I mean, it’s a pretty natural response, don’t you think? But look at what Jesus tells him to do:

Jesus refused and said to the man, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and what mercy he has shown you. And the man went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him and everyone was amazed.

Why did Jesus do that? Because He knew that this man’s life had been radically transformed by God’s love and He wanted this man to go and pour that love out into his local community. This demoniac had been shown grace and mercy and now Jesus wanted him to go home and tell his friends about it – “Go become part of your community again. Go tell them of Me.”

Jesus wasn’t so much interested in jumping up and down about the splash He had made through setting this man free. He wanted the splash to have a ripple effect that would go on and on through the community and down through the generations.

Do you see? When our lives are transformed by the healing love and mercy of Jesus Christ, then Jesus comes in and turns our world upside down with His saving love. He doesn’t want us to go into a holy huddle; He wants us out there sharing that very same love and mercy that has touched our lives, with all those other people out there who need the very same love and mercy.

Now, I know sometimes I can be a slow learner. I can be stubborn and stiff necked and so it takes a while to get things through my thick scull but for years I had been trying to make myself happy by getting everything to flow in to me – wealth, recognition, success … And as you may have heard me say before, those things ultimately never brought the fulfilment and contentment that I was looking for.

It wasn’t until I, like the Gerasene demoniac, was set free by Jesus, that I discovered that I could share His grace and His mercy and His love with other people. And do you know the amazing thing? Once I started doing that; once His love started flowing out of me into the lives of other people, that fulfilment and contentment that I had been looking for, for all those years, absolutely flooded my life. Just the way Jesus always intended actually.

More and More

I wonder if you can ever have too much love; I wonder whether it’s possible to give away too much love – my hunch is not. In fact, we live in a world where, frankly, there just isn’t enough love going round. And that is so sad because so many of us believe in this God who poured out His love out for us on that cross through Jesus. Romans chapter 5:

Since we are justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we now stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing in the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and this hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us.

For while we were still weak, just at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

So, God has poured His Spirit out into us – this God who is love. He’s proven His love for us through Jesus and yet somehow we don’t experience His love – either because we don’t really believe that it’s for us or because we simply don’t draw close to Jesus, day after day, in those quiet times with Him alone. And as a direct consequence of that, His amazing love doesn’t flow out through us into a lost and hurting world.

Friend, if you have been struggling to receive God’s love and to give it away, then today is the day to believe that His mighty love is for you. Today is the day to lay hold of that Scripture that I have just shared with you – Romans chapter 5, verses 1 to 8, and believe that it is true for you … for your life, amidst your trials and suffering – because it is!!

And I’d like to finish this series on the amazing love of God with an exhortation; an encouragement for you to love more and more. Again, it comes from the Apostle Paul, this time writing to his friends in Philippi. Have a listen. Philippians chapter 1, beginning at verse 9:

And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight.

You see, what Paul was urging the Philippians to do here was to let the love of God in them overflow more and more into those around them. And it’s by letting that happen that God impacts other people’s lives and produces and harvest of righteousness. What does that mean? That by sending Jesus to die for you and for me, He has given us the free opportunity to be righteous – in other words, to have a right standing before Him, by forgiving our sin.

And as we experience God’s forgiveness and then we are overwhelmed in the knowledge of His love for us – that is then meant to overflow out of us, more and more, into the lives of other people, who in turn, will come to know Jesus and experience His love so that they, in turn, can overflow this perfect and wondrous love, more and more, into the lives of those around them.

Friend, the love of God is the most amazing and wondrous thing I have ever experienced. Without any shadow of any doubt, His perfect love casts out all fear. His perfect love heals all my wounds. His perfect love has completely and utterly transformed my life. And He means that to happen not just in one or two lives but in the life of everyone who put their faith in Jesus – more and more!