Tuesday, December 16th, 2003 - Love Wrap

I have had some time to listen to Greg Boyd's talk a few more times, talk to some awesome friends about their opinions, and process all that God has been showing me anew about love. The Live in Love post surprisingly did say it pretty well, but I would like to say it another way to kind of wrap up my thoughts right now on this.

Since we are created with a void in us that can only be filled by God, we struggle when we are not going to God for fulfillment of that void. In this struggle, we try to get worth by looking down upon others in our minds. So not only are we not right with God, but we also neglect to ascribe unsurpassable worth to other people, which is our main job, and instead do the opposite by bringing them down.

The reason that this happens so often (even if we are not aware of it) is because we don't focus on being more loving enough. We hold love in high regard, but we forget to prioritize it absolutely above all else. We place our focus on holiness, purity, following God's will, witnessing, or whatever else, based on what we may be dealing with at the time. These are all wonderful things, but we often forget to focus on keeping love in highest regards while doing such things.

For me, I was seeking holiness and God's will when God touched my heart with this message. I was struggling to grow in holiness when I realized that the answer to growing in holiness is to fall more in love with God. Now that I have processed this more, I think that the answer to everything is falling more in love with God. Out of that comes everything else, including loving others and the self, and then all other desirable thoughts and attributes. As I was praying about falling more in love with God, He showed me that I had been seeking holiness and His will without holding those things in a completely loving mindset.

I sought them out of love for God, but I didn't take on an attitude of growing in love - that was the key element that I have been missing. Boyd said that often we, as Christians, ask each other how we are doing spiritually, and we answer based on if we have been reading our Bibles, praying, witnessing as often or as much as we deem sufficient. Instead, Boyd challenges, we should answer based on if we are becoming more loving: "Am I more loving than I was a year ago? A month ago?" I am making it my main employment to become more loving, both towards God and other people.

Seeking truth without love leads to statements which may be technically true, but real truth isn't found apart from love (Ephesians 4:15). Seeking biblical doctrine without love leads to a condemning abuse of the Bible, making the Bible "one of the most dangerous weapons in the world when it is used outside of love." One that especially hit me - seeking holiness without love leads to Pharisee-ism, where one is self-righteous and exclusive of others. In sum, do everything with love going before it because nothing takes on correct meaning until love is attributed to it. God is love, so doing this will lead to a worshipful attitude in everything that we do.

I feel that I've communicated the full of what God is teaching me about love through this post and the one titled Live in Love, so I would encourage you to read that one as well. God has used all this thinking on love as a catalyst to other thought processes, urged by great conversations with friends and some awesome sections of the Bible. A couple more posts are on the way :)

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