God is Love

On May 1, 2014   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

1 John 4: 8

The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.


God is love, not thought. That means that He is not in our brains. This is a heart thing. I don’t like it any more than you do. I wish I could be very academic about this whole “God” thing but it is fruitless and Jesus told us to go and bear fruit. We need to have an experiential knowledge of God’s love. What does that mean? We must know this love in our hearts. We must experience it. You can study love with your vast intellect until you turn blue but you will never understand it until you allow it to penetrate your heart and you finally experience the fullness of love. God is love so the only way you can ever experience Him is to let love reign supreme in your life. In order to do that, you have to let your heart play the leading role. It does not matter how smart we are. You may have a Mensa IQ but when it comes down to the bottom line that great intellect just won’t cut it. You don’t comprehend love with your mind. You can only have a true understanding of love when you let your heart take the lead. So if we are going to know God, if we are ever going to understand His unfathomable riches we are going to have to learn to hear Him with our hearts. We must learn to seek Him with our hearts rather than our minds and we must allow His Word to penetrate, not our thinking, but rather our feelings and our believing. Honestly, in order to be a true Christian we must engage our hearts.

I want you to know that I cannot think of any more uncomfortable news to have to receive personally but I have heard so much about the heart lately that if Balaam’s donkey came up to me and brayed, “Heart,” I don’t think I would even be surprised. There is a reason that God has filled the environment with heart language. He is trying to reach us on the level where He can change our lives. 

Since God is love the only way we will ever come to know Him is to engage our hearts. Love is not of the mind and cannot be comprehended by the gray matter. It takes a beating heart pumping warm, red blood to receive love. Everything God says is love. Every answer you need is love. Therefore, in order for us to receive God, the love of God, blessings and answers we must allow our hearts to become places of openness and conversation. How do you do that? I don’t know yet. I am still working it out myself but I know that the more I allow my heart to live and to be free from the shackles of my mind, the more life and love God is able to pump into me. God is love. Love is a condition of the heart. If we want to know God then we are going to have to let Him speak to our hearts. It may be uncomfortable for some of us but we really are going to be so glad we opened up and let Him in. Be blessed!

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The lemonade scripture

On March 5, 2014   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Romans 8: 28

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

I call this the lemonade scripture because what it means to you is that God will take the lemons that life hands you and he will add a little sugar to them and make for you lemonade. I had a rough journey coming to this understanding and I would like to tell you that story today. First, though, I want you to know that this scripture is talking about you. Do not disqualify yourself. God Himself has called you to His purpose. He is constantly calling you to Himself. You are His beloved.

Years ago, in my High School days and my freshman year of college, I went through a rough patch. Although all of my young life I had believed in God and His son Jesus there came a point in my confusion that I concluded that there could not exist a benevolent God given the pain and turmoil I was experiencing. Then I had an even greater epiphany. I decided that there was, in fact, a God because, I reasoned, it was He who was causing these problems in my life.

I ran across some really bad teaching in those years. People were actually teaching from the pulpit that God was putting hurt and anguish on people in order to make them strong. Of course that is exactly what I did not need to hear because it only solidified my belief that God was the author of my pain. There was a part of me that could not completely accept this position though so there raged within me a battle. Who is this God of ours? Is he a loving God or is He a God who strengthens us through pain?

Over the years I began to come to know this God and discovered that He is in fact Love itself. What I didn’t realize though is that in my heart of hearts there was still lodged a fear of what God would do to me if I ever drew really close to Him. I had a pretty good relationship with Jesus but to my horror I discovered that there was a definite mistrust in my heart towards God the Father. Insane! That realization was one of the most humbling and core shaking moments of my life but it opened the blinds on the window of my heart so that God’s light could shine and reveal truth to my heart.

I still hear people accuse God of putting bad stuff on them for various purposes and I even still hear ministers preach that message which grieves my spirit immensely.

Our God is love. If there is only one message that we share it must be that. He doesn’t have to put bad things on people, Satan does plenty of that. No, God can use love. There is nothing that trouble can teach you that love cannot much better reveal to you. Jesus came to show us the way and that way was not the way of trouble. God is not in the lemon business; He is in the lemonade business. He will take all of the junk the devil slings at you and He will turn it for your good. He is the one that will take the thunder cloud and turn it inside out so that the silver lining is all you see. He will take every missile of the devil which is meant to hurt you and turn it into a blessing. That is His way. Our Father causes everything to work out for our good because He loves us.

As for me, I so despised this scripture for many years and now it is a favorite. Jesus set me free from the lie. I wonder if that is why I love lemonade so much. 

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