love

so i heard chuck swindoll speak today and i almost cried like a small child. i wasnt taken back by my womanness or by my sensitivity to his stories (ive always kinda been a girl in that regard), but rather i was fascinated by the way the topic of love grips people. i mean if he had spoke of temptations, or the life of paul, or the woman at the well, i doubt the room would have been so quiet. so i cant logically attribute the aura of the room to the dynamic speaker that chuck happens to be...so what is it? sure he dominates the pulpit and tells stories like a champ, but why does teaching on love rivot us. and believe me if you would have been there you would have been quiet and reflective as well!...i mean i left and felt a bit jacked up and unable to hold a normal conversation for the next 30 mins. i think its safe to assume that when Truth penetrates, it automatically jolts our thinking and demands our attention. the message is what made the room feel powerful, because the message contained the Truth.

i mean when i try to take a step back from this "message" or "gospel" i can begin to understand why it is foolishness to those who don't know God!...i mean i need not explain the gospel to you guys, but have you really stepped out of our christian bubble long enough to think about the absurdity of our message? ha. but what is more...have you stepped out long enough to see brilliance of God's message? i mean if we boil down the Bible we can sum it up in the word LOVE (gal 5.14). it may be heretical for me to say it, but honestly sometimes i think the cross is so loving that it doesn't even affect me when i think about it. what i mean by that is that its SO loving that i cant even relate to it! i think im loving when i let someone have my seat or buy someone's dinner...i think im loving when i sacrifice an hour to help my brother fix his house...thats the extent of my self-sacrifice...thats my love in a nutshell...i can't even grasp the cross yall...ill be honest. so if the cross is hard for me to fathom, although it is the ultimate in sacrifices and the ultimate act of love, then why can a story about a little kid who gave a crappy gift to his rude teacher be so touching? why do i want to cry when i hear awesome stories of regular people that excute extraordinary love? i think it safe to say that when we see love in action, when we see selflessness, we see Christ! something, or rather, someone inside of us longs to be like that! im encourage to think God is wanting to pour out love through us too!

so my prayer is that while i dont understand the act of ultimate love on the cross, because i can't really relate, maybe the Holy Spirit might help me walk more closely as His word becomes a light unto my path, however faint it may be (because my eyes aren't where im walking half the time anyway). c.s. lewis' makes much sense when he states that, "christian love, either towards god or towards man, is an affair of the will." maybe as we experience the love of christ as we walk in his commands, and thus, showing our love for him, we might be able to find less reason to get angry in traffic or retailiate when we are wronged. and then, maybe we will find more reason to give, and more reason to encourage and more reason to build up. if im honest "taking up my cross daily" is a venture i have never set my eyes upon but i could fool you into thinking that i do it everyday. perhaps its when we walk in gods commandments that we might begin to understand the beauty of the cross and therefore Love. lets make no mistake there is a huge and encouraging correlation between love and truth...jesus.

i hope at least some of this made sense...its like 13 times better in my head...dangit.

jon