L-O-V-E

Let's fall in love...why shouldn't we fall in love?

Love sounds so easy. So mushy, gooey, chocolatey, warm, and fuzzy. At least, it starts out that way...and then it's hard. Just plain hard.

As long as things stay surface-y, it's easy to love. And easy to be loved. I love you for all the good things you are, and as long as I keep wearing my mask of having things together, I feel pretty lovable.

But then, things get messy. I get annoyed by your little quirks and things that rub me wrong. You find out that I'm kind of a jerk sometimes and that I get on your nerves.

Eventually, I find out that my love is not pure. It's selfish and broken and sometimes mixed with pride and jealousy. So I doubt the ability of anyone else to love either. Especially to love me for who I am.

And yet, there is a deep love that sees past the mess and gives without any strings attached. A love so strong, so pure, so fierce, so relentless. I don't understand God's love, and therefore I struggle to love. I don't want to fight it anymore. I want to run into His arms as His little girl and fall in love all over again. And then run out into the world and give it all away.

A thought from Lewis...

“About death, I go through different moods, but the times when I can desire it are never, I think, those when this world seems harshest. On the contrary, it is just when there seems to be most of Heaven already here that I come nearest to longing for the patria [the heavenly homeland]. It is the bright frontispiece which whets one to read the story itself. All joy (as distinct from mere pleasure, still more amusement) emphasizes our pilgrim status: always reminds, beckons, awakes desire. Our best havings are wantings.” -C.S. Lewis

Full of grace and truth

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. And from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." -John 1:14, 16-17

Grace and truth. Truth and grace. One without the other is fatal. Jesus brought both. Jesus is life.

Grace...a long time ago, I memorized a definition for grace that went something along the lines of, "God giving me a free gift I don't deserve" and I like it. I have never done anything to earn His favor, yet God keeps giving good gifts because He is a loving Father and I am His daughter.

Somehow, though, grace can easily turn into license to behave in any way we want. The idea of "cheap grace" is dangerous. It can lead us to miss the point of following Jesus at all. The gospel I understood growing up was "accept Jesus into your heart...now you know you're going to heaven, so you don't have to lie awake worrying about going to hell...so go on living life, go to church, just don't do anything really bad." Maybe I was ignorant in my, ahem, younger days, but I see this kind of feel-good "Christianity" a lot...it appeals to our consumeristic worldview. It gives us a get out of hell free card, and gives us religion without rules. If I've asked Jesus into my heart, He won't keep me from heaven just because I want to enjoy life while I can. YET, this kind of "grace" also keeps us from truly living. Cheap grace keeps us trapped in the sinful nature that Jesus came to save us from. He knows how life is meant to be lived, who we were meant to be, and empowers us to be that by His Spirit. He desires to transform us into the kind of people that love and give freely, shining light into a darkened world. Cheap grace leaves us looking a lot like the rest of the world, with no true hope to offer.

However, God's favor given as part of a love relationship, is meaningless without truth. If I don't realize what I truly deserve, and who I truly am, what God offers has little value. If I think that I am a pretty good person and that I am entitled to God's love, then why do I need grace? Jesus dying on the cross is of little meaning if I don't need a savior. So, moving on...

Truth...what is truth, Pilate asks. Jesus goes as far to say, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Truth is not always pleasant. It can be painful. It sheds light on reality. Jesus came into a world of sinners to show us how short we fall. Up to this point, the goal of Judaism was to follow the law religiously, to keep up an appearance of holiness. Jesus rebuked the religious teachers of the day, calling them "whitewashed tombstones." In Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount shows the true nature of God's desires for His people; God desires not just right outward actions, but a heart that deeply loves God and others and acts out of that love. When we look at ourselves in this light, we realize that even the good we do often has selfish motives and how much we serve ourselves first. It is possible to do everything right, but be an ugly person inside. Seeing ourselves in light of Jesus' teachings, this becomes apparent.

Yet, if all Jesus showed us was truth, we would not be able to handle it. One of my favorite novels, The Picture of Dorian Gray, has a good illustration of this. Dorian begins as a handsome, innocent young man, untainted by the ways of the world. His friend, painter Basil Hallward, paints a portrait of Dorian. He eventually sells his soul so that the portrait will age instead of him. As he embraces a hedonistic lifestyle, he remains unchanged. However, in the final scene, Dorian sees the mess of himself in the portrait and plunges a knife into his heart. In the same way, if Jesus only showed us the depth of our sinful nature without offering Himself as our mediator, we would be completely hopeless.

Both grace and truth alone leave us still a broken humanity. But God does not leave us to suffer the fate of either one. Instead He shows us his overflowing love by giving us His Son, full of grace AND truth. He alone is our redemption and hope through the valleys of life.

Come Thou Fount

Come Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace
Streams of mercy, never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet
Sung by flaming tongues above
Praise the mount, I'm fixed upon it
Mount of Thy redeeming love

Here I raise mine Ebenezer
Hither by Thy help I've come
Jesus sought me when a stranger
Wandering from the fold of God
He to rescue me from danger
Interposed His precious blood

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be
Let Thy goodness like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to Thee
Prone to wander, Lord I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here's my heart, O take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above.

This has been one of my favorite, if not favorite, hymns. I had it sung at my baptism and it has traveled with me ever since.
I think I love it so much because, regardless of where I am, I find something to grab hold of in it.

For a long while, it was always the third stanza...and at the point I finally awakened to the Spirit-filled life, I thought I was fixed upon that mount of redeeming love for good. Little did I know, it's not so easy to stay on the mountaintop. More than ever, I feel myself prone to wander, but more than ever, I feel deep gratitude when I look back at all the Ebenezers, and more than ever, I believe in the power of God's redeeming love.

It's admitting that I can't walk through this life alone, that I can't pay Jesus back for what He's done, that I don't even have adequate words to thank him. It's asking Him to be my Rabbi, to teach me how to love God with my whole heart, because I don't have it in me.

And it's the gospel summed up in a few beautiful words...Jesus sought me, while a stranger, wandering from the fold of God. He to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood. And I will gladly be indebted to His abundant grace.

Too easily pleased?

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
-C.S. Lewis