This week I believe we had no choice but to talk about love.
What does love mean for us?
How does love fit into the picture of God and us.
Love is a strange thing.
It can lead to some strange behaviours.
This week people all over the world over indulged in flowers, chocolates, dinners, gifts and cards to express how much they love the special person in their life. It is expected that around $17 billion was spent by people expressing their love on this day.
I sometimes wonder why we don’t do it on other days as well.
And people will spend time and money to nurture love in their relationships.
They will plan romantic dinners.
Read books on love.
Watch Oprah and Doctor Phil.
Try to discover what love is about.
So I thought I’d share some thoughts, views and stories about love:
An older woman talking to her friends said:
"I think I’m married to an archaeologist, I get the feeling that the older I get, the better he loves me."
From a child:
“Dear God, I bet it is very hard for you to love all the people all the time in the whole world.
There are only four people in our family
and often I have trouble loving any of them!”
A young man emailing his girlfriend.
“Sweetheart, if this world was as hot as the Sahara desert, I would crawl on my knees through the burning sand to come to you.
If the world would be like the Atlantic Ocean, I would swim through shark infested waters to come to you.
If we lived in medieval time I would fight the most fiercest dragon to be by your side.
By the way, I will see you on Thursday if it does not rain.”
An Eight year old:
Love is when Daddy reads me a bedtime story.
True love is when he doesn’t skip any of the pages.
Some one once said
Love your friend to keep them,
Love your enemy to gain them.
From Mother Teresa:
I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.
So how do you view love?
What are your thoughts on love?
Have you discovered love?
Infact
have you discovered God’s unconditional love for you?
Today’s Gospel reading is simply about that.
About discovering that God’s number one priority is to love.
Listen again to these very famous words from John chapter 3 verse 16:
For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son,
that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but to save the world through him.
And from 1 John 3:16
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another.
Do you realise how significant this is?
Think about it for a moment.
Consider what God did to show you He loves you.
Everything God does,
Is because He loves you!!
Everything God does
Is done in love and with love!!
Each of us, have many relationships.
Some of these relationships have very little love in them.
For instance I have a relationship with a bank, but I can tell you I don’t love that bank at times.
It is important for us to understand what is important in each of our relationships.
And for our relationship with God it is God’s desire to show us we are loved.
Unfortunately at times many people view their relationship with God
not centred around love
not focused on love.
But around other things,
Like money.
Or fear.
Or rules.
Or punishment.
Or having the right knowledge or facts.
Or gaining an easier life.
Or being part of a family.
Or being refreshed.
Or something else other than love, the list can go on..
Apart from love!!
What other things are important for you in your relationship with God?
Sometimes we make these more important than they need to be.
For Nicodemus we are not told exactly what these things are.
However Jesus does reveal that Nicodemus has the wrong perspective of God.
The wrong idea of what is important.
Listen again to verse 3
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again.”
And from verses 10 and 11
10“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.
Nicodemus was no dill.
Nicodemus knew a lot of facts about God.
The issue was he didn’t truly know God.
Nicodemus was one of those Pharisees, experts in the law.
And what do we know about the Pharisees?
They loved judging people.
They loved highlighting to others how God is likely to have problems with them unless they did the right thing.
Nicodemus’ whole understanding of God was based on how he thought God should be operating.
Do you ever do this?
However Jesus kept encouraging Nicodemus to have a different perspective on life.
A perspective on life that sees God as love.
That appreciates that God’s priority is that God wants to love Nicodemus and others.
And God’s number one priority is that other people need to know that they are loved by God, no matter what.
There was a lost advert that read something like this.
Lost dog,
brown fur, some missing due to fights
blind in one eye,
three legs,
slightly arthritic,
goes by name of Lucky.
Reward offered.
Phone owner..
God has the same statement for you and anyone else you know!
He loves you!!
Now this does not mean
you can do what ever you want!
Nor does it mean that everyone will be in heaven regardless of what they believe.
The fact is simple.
If you do not believe and trust Jesus as your only way to heaven, you have already condemned yourself to a life without God.
Check out the rest of John chapter 3.
Jesus doesn’t need to condemn anyone who doesn’t believe, they do it themself.
So how do we gain and maintain God’s perspective on life.
A perspective that reveals God’s love to us.
First, is we need to spend time with him, every day.
In prayer, in reading his scriptures and discovering him with other Christians.
Second is that we need to remember the simple fact that God loves us.
And in loving us, he has already delivered into our lives the gift of eternal life.
It is not something we can or have to earn.
He simply gives it to us because He loves us.
Thirdly as we engage with God,
constantly ask yourself what is God up to, what is God doing!!!
This is God expressing his love to you and others.
And fourthly when you hear God prompting you or nudging you to do something.
Don’t see it as something oppressive or as work,
rather see it as opportunities for you to share His love.
To help others experience His unconditional love.
And a way of thanking God for how much he loves you!
This week my encouragement to you is to see God’s love in everything you encounter.
And to share this love with whoever you meet.
The love that explains why Jesus came to earth and died for you.
If you think about it Jesus death only makes sense when you see it through the eyes of love.
To conclude I leave you with two little stories for you to think about.
An early Christian scholar Tertullian of Carthage, declared that the one thing that converted him to Christianity was not the arguments they gave him, because he could find a counterpoint for every argument. “But it was because Christians had something he didn’t have. The thing that converted him to Christianity was the way that they loved each other.”
And the other is about a pastor, who one day a pastor was visiting a farmer and his family.
On this visit he noticed a weather vane on it that was spinning around in the wind.
On the weather vane the words "GOD IS LOVE" was engraved.
The pastor said to the man, "I don’t think that is a very good way to talk about God’s love.
“Why not!” said the farmer.
“Because you are saying that God’s love is Wishy Washy
and changes depending on the way the wind blows?" said the farmer.
" Absolutely not" said the farmer. "That Weather Vane is saying, "No matter which way the wind blows, God is Love."
No matter what is happening or has happened God is love.
God still loves you.
AMEN
