Heart Tracks - The Shape Of Love

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son....." John 3:16...."If love isn't shaped like a cross; it isn't really love." Ann Voskamp

In the fallen world we live in, we're conditioned to think that when life goes wrong, oftentimes terribly wrong, there must be something wrong with us. This seems to be especially so as it pertains to those who say we are His. We profess believe in a Father God who is love itself....until our circumstances seem to point to Him as a very unloving God indeed. The world often asks, "If God is so loving then "Why?" Why sickness, disease, war, hate, bigotry, injustice, divorce, abuse, and on an on. The presence of any of these in our lives always brings us to the place of having to reconcile His love with that which seems to contradict it.

Before anything else, we have to come to terms with something. We live in a fallen world infected by the spiritual disease of sin. Evil, and all it's accompanying forms exists not because He chose for it to, but we did, through our human and spiritual ancestors, Adam and Eve, when they believed the devil's lies and rebelled against God. The human race has suffered the consequence ever since. God, in His love, immediately unfolded His plan of redemption and rescue through His Son, Jesus Christ. Even so, we would live, even as redeemed souls, in a world that continues to be fallen, and continues to be saturated with the effects of that fallen state. We are not exempt from those effects on this side of eternity. His love doesn't mean a pain free life. It means a Christ filled life in the midst of the pain. This is what we too often fail to understand.

When life hurts, terribly hurts, we think He has abandoned us, or that somehow, we must have failed Him somewhere, and He is punishing us for it. We think we've done something wrong. Or worse, that we are something wrong. If this were not so, the disease would not have come, the divorce would not have happened, the abuse would never have taken place. That's where we must hear the above words of Ann Voskamp; "If love (His love) isn't shaped like a cross; it isn't really love." The Father gave His only Son....He didn't spare Him the ordeal of the cross. It was the only way to bring redemption to a human race under the curse of sin. It is the only path for those who would be free of that curse. Our hearts and souls are made free, but our lives will continue to grapple with the effects of that sin while we yet live and breathe. When we do, we have to look to the cross, to the Lord who endured it, conquered it, and gave us life through it. His love is perfectly shown in that cross, and if we will trust in Him, He will show His love perfectly to us as we endure as well. And we will do more than survive, we will thrive. We will overcome. We will understand the unconditional nature of His love, and we'll know it isn't based on feelings or circumstances, but upon who He is, and what He gives.

I don't know how you've been defining the shape of His love, but have you come to the place of realizing that is indeed, "shaped like a cross?" His love will always include His cross. It would not be perfect love if it didn't. In this fallen world, do not flee from the effects of that fallen state, but run to Him, to His cross and His love that it portrays. His love flows down to the cross and rises back up to Him. Embrace it, and know His love, His real and true love today.

Blessings,
Pastor O