Little Things

     With the birth of a new baby this week, our family grew.  As I walked into the hospital room and saw my nephew (the one it seems just yesterday I held as a newborn) holding his tiny daughter, it was all I could do to not burst into tears.  Tears of joy.  Tears of realizing how quickly time passes and wanting it back.  Tears of amazement as I took that tiny bundle of precious baby into my arms.  Although I hold babies pretty much every Sunday in the church nursery, somehow it's different when it's your own.  The connection is something that surprises you.  Can I really love something so tiny so quickly?
     For many years I talked to my maternal grandmother every Sunday afternoon.  Often she would bring up love.  She would tell me that, when she would find out another great-grandchild was on it's way she just couldn't figure out how she could have enough love for yet another child.  It was as if her love was already stretched as far as it could go.  But then she would tell me that when you see that baby, you love them.  It's there.  And you always have enough love.
     Somehow this love makes me believe in God all the more. Without God, we have no capacity to love.  We think we do but we don't.  I see so many people thinking they are really loving or in love.  They don't have a clue.  When you love someone, you want what is best for that person.  I've blogged about I Corinthians 13 before and how Jesus IS love.  It's just so true.  We are to seek to be like Him.  Love is a huge part of that. 
      Love ALWAYS wants what is best for us.  And what is best for us?  To know God.  To truly know God.  Love isn't selfish.  If someone says they love you but they keep you from God, they don't love you at all.  Love draws, pulls, encourages you to be the man or woman God called you to be.  Love is self-sacrificing, never selfish. 
     Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth (verse 6).  Is your life filed with truth?  Jesus is the Way the TRUTH and the Life.  Is your life filled with Jesus?   Or are you enjoying a life of sin and evil, calling it love?  Here's the truth.  You are totally deceiving yourself if you think you are enjoying life away from Christ and being disobedient to His Word.  And it may not be until your life on this earth is over and you meet your final judgement that you realize how what you called love was actually a lie straight from the pits of hell.  I pray you find Truth before that happens. It breaks my heart to see people who think they've got things together but they are really deceiving themselves and on a path straight to eternal damnation because they refuse Truth.
     Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  That's verse 7.  Notice one word repeated there.  Always.  Love doesn't sometime protect.  It doesn't trust just when it's pretty sure it won't be hurt.  Love doesn't hope just when it looks like it's going to be a sure thing.  Love doesn't give up.  I must confess that I've been guilty of not protecting a reputation by saying something that I shouldn't have.  I've not always trusted.  I've given up hope.  I've thrown in the towel.
     What changed me to the point of repentance and taught me true love?  Love itself....Jesus.  I have learned that there is no love without Him.  When we look at the circumstances of our lives, we see huge mountains.  We see pain.  We see struggles with what seems like insurmountable odds.  But what does Jesus see when He looks at the same things?  A mountain of circumstances or a bump in the road that we can easily step over if we focus on Him?  I'm pretty sure He sees our big things as little things.  Jesus said in Matthew 19:26 "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible".  Not some things.  All things.  (An interesting side note.  This verse is only 20 verses after Jesus tells us that marriage makes people not two but one flesh and declares what God has joined together, no one can separate.  Another example of real love created by God and something only made possible with God.) 
     What must we do to truly love?  We must give up our selfish lives and repent.  Release every part of our lives to God.  No one can truly know love without knowing the author of love.  The creator of love.  Love that came down from Heaven, lived a sinless life and died a horrendous death just so you and I could live.  It's not just a little story.  It's the big picture.  Do you know Him?  Would you like to?