Limitless Love

You can never be more loved than you are right now. But you can experience more. What I am trying to identify is that God loves us completely, fully and unconditionally even if you do not feel it. Who of us feels loved completely 100% of the time? We always have room to experience more.

The Bible is about love, it is a love story,. We have a hard time with the concept of love because our eyes were opened to the right/wrong’s and we tend to stay focused there, trying to maintain a loveable status by being “good.” We try so hard to earn points from someone who is not even keeping score. (Pastor Amy)

Our problem is that we think we know who God is.

Daniel 7:9 Gods throne has fiery wheels - it moves!

Maybe you have read this passage and maybe not but hopefully today you look at this and ponder. God has a throne with fiery wheels.

In the Bible, there are several descriptions given of God’s throne room in heaven. (See Ezekiel 1:26-28, Daniel 7:9-10, and Revelation 4)

His throne is on wheels, the throne moves, God is mobile, that is what wheels are for. It has fiery wheels, with a fire blazing under it. Ezekiel says the image on the throne is fiery. Who can sit on a throne like that? Only God.

Is that how you had pictured Him?

We cannot hope to fathom this because we have no human experiences to compare it to. Who is this God who sits on a fiery moving throne?

Good question, He is a God we have so much more to learn about.

Jesus walks on top of water, He walks through walls. Know anyone else who does that?

Rhetorical questions at best, but the point is, we do not really “know” God, He is bigger, wiser, kinder, a justice bringer, and His love is limitless.

He says His whole character is love.

We rarely link love and justice together. Our brains put them in different categories, but honestly how can you love perfectly if you did not have perfect justice.

Do you know Him like that?

God does not usually answer or show up in ways we would expect, or want. The baby in a manger is a huge example of a God surprise.

The book of Habakkuk in the Old Testament has the prophet pouring out his heart for Gods solution to their problems. God answers and says He is sending a foreign tribe to come and capture them. That’s His answer? Send an enemy…. That is love?

God is concerned about our character not our comfort, that is love, a lot of us have this part backwards refusing to accept that God may have caused or allowed our discomfort.

Joseph in the Bible was the youngest of 12, quite a bit of a brat towards his brothers. They resented him, actually the resentment turned to hate. They attempted to kill him but ended up selling him to a caravan in the desert.

I imagine Joseph thought to himself, God will rescue me because He saw what those guys did to me.

Wrong. He was sold as a slave to an Egyptian, got falsely accused of a crime, did a couple years jail time. Worked his way up in prison to be known as an honest slave, was put in charge of other prisoners.

Finally Joseph is remembered and those who remember him noted that he can hear messages from God and the messages are true! Joseph is taken before Pharoh and again works his way up because he can hear the voice of God and becomes the 2nd highest ranking official in all of Egypt right under Pharoh.

In answer to Joseph’s prayers, he gets sold as a slave, goes to prison for a few years, and then becomes a high official in the government.

Can you say plot twist! No one saw all that coming.

How do you build muscle? Resistance training in the form of weights or working out. It hurts after you go to the gym! You have worked your muscles.

How do you grow spiritually? Resistance training. Physically it is resistance to build muscle and spiritually it is resistance that grows your God muscle.

How do you grow your love muscle? Resistance training. For me it was Oswald Chambers. One of my constant daily reads… I remember the first time I read it 30 or more years ago…

My Utmost for His Highest, specifically reflecting on Jesus’s command in John 15:12 to "love one another as I have loved you." Chambers wrote: “He is saying, 'I will bring a number of people around you whom you cannot respect, but you must exhibit My love to them, just as I have exhibited it to you.'"

When read this I realized how true it was. The people hardest to love were the ones who I had to work hard to find love and compassion for. I also realized that I humanly did not have the capacity, only by extending the love of God, that same love God had for unloveable me, is this possible.

We are not called to do things that we are not equipped for. God has only asked us to share that which He has given us. To top it off He gave us His Spirit, His nature to make it even possible. Our decision is whether to extend the same grace and love that we have received.

“The true test of Christianity is not loving Jesus, it’s loving Judas” those that have betrayed us.