Boundless Love

Last Sunday, Scott Kaehr preached the message. Scott is the husband of our church counselor, and also a mentor to Chad. Chad had been wanting him to preach a message for some time, because he really felt like he had an awesome message to share (and indeed he did!).

Scott talked about the love of God. As cliché as that would seem for a sermon, it's not really cliché at all when you think about it. After all, does hearing about God's love ever get old? Does it ever lose its power? Is the message of God's love ever something that we should get tired of? God's love is so glorious, boundless, and multi-faceted! The more we hear about it, the more we understand. Though, I'm sure we won't fully grasp the depth and wonder of it until we get to heaven!! It's just SO BIG!! Like the Chris Tomlin song says, it's "Indescribable" !! 

This is one thing that is just so hard to put into words! The love of God sometimes just renders me speechless (and it's one of the few things that can! LOL). So, I don't know if I will even have much to say other than a few of the hard-hitting aspects of Scott's message. One being that God is a God who loves us, pursues us, and created us so that we could have a deep, personal, and intimate relationship with Him. In fact, His love is so pure and true that He even gives us the freedom to CHOOSE to love Him. He didn't just make us to be robotic people and demand our worship and fellowship. A relationship is nothing if it's not genuine. 

As if that weren't enough, God just kept on loving us even when we chose sin and independence and rejected Him. In the garden of Eden, and since then, so many of us have chosen to live our lives without Him; though His love remains. He loves us anyways; even if we don't love Him back!! How awesome is that! It's easy to love the ones that love you back, but to love those that don't….WOW!! 

His ultimate proof of love was demonstrated by sending His son to die for our sins; even if we couldn't care a lick about that generous gift. Isn't it amazing that even after displaying such love and mercy, we could STILL spit in His face? Yet, some of us do, but He STILL loves us!! Period!! AMAZING!! 

Do you have that fellowship with Him? If you haven't, you CAN! Or, if your fellowship has been broken, you can return! No matter what the case, you can make that "U Turn". You can repent, turn you back on all the things that pull you away from His presence, and turn to Him. His offer is always there: "Come!" He lays out the beautiful banquet table for you and offers you to come and fellowship with Him and indulge in all the wonderful things that He has to offer you. We can lay everything else down; our ways, our burdens, our heavy weights around our necks. We can "yoke up with Jesus" (as Scott put it) and He will carry those things that we needn't be carrying anyways. He will lift us up and out of all that drags us down, and replace it with good things that will enrich our lives. He will fill us with the fruit of His Spirit and our cup will overflow! 

Scott encouraged us to have a "bench mark" day. He said he had a time not that long ago that he had strayed away, but that looking back, he can see how far he has come. Our faith should be like that. We should be able to look back a year from now and say that we are stronger in our faith than we were before. We should be able to look back on our journey and relish the joy that we are even closer to God than we were before! It's kind of like a joke Mitch and I always say (which we heard from a comedian). The joke is this: "Did you know it was a year ago today?" Did you get it? LOL It most definitely WAS a year ago today! It's a year ago, a month ago, a week ago, etc. every day! What has happened in that passage of time? What will your bench mark be? 

May the wonderful love of God bring peace and joy into your heart today - and every day!! Grace and peace to all of you as you bask in the simple but profound truth that "God made you special, and He loves you very much!" (Yes, I borrowed that from "Veggie Tales"!).