Many of my friends choose a word to focus on throughout the
coming New Year. Unofficially, if I had to choose a word for 2016, it would be
the word love.
A wise tentmaker once wrote, “. . . God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him” (Romans 5:8).
God has demonstrated his love for us. Once
and for all. He has nothing else to prove. If we have a problem with love, it is
in us, not God.
Priscilla Shirer declares, “We don’t need
greater faith. We need to understand how great God is.”
The same is true of love. We don’t need
more love. We need to understand how big God’s love is for us, for that love is
foundational to every other area of our lives. That same tentmaker penned, “And
now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love”
(I Corinthians 13:13).
As Christians, we talk about love a lot. But maybe you’re
like me, and though you think you have all of this love business worked out in your
brain, it’s not all worked out in your heart. Or your life. God has been
working on me a very long time in this regard.
Perhaps my dad’s death has pushed me more in this direction. A strong
Christian friend told me that as long as her dad was alive she felt everything
would be all right. But after he died, she struggled to believe that. It rocked
her world. And yes, that’s how I felt, because I knew from experience how much
my dad loved me. But when he died, who would fill that place?
Well of course, I know God loves me a gazillion times more
than my dad ever could, but the experience of it sometimes lags behind the
knowledge of it.
So here’s the preacher’s wife confessing that she needs to
walk more fully in the love of God. But, I don’t imagine that I’m alone in
this.
This year, 2016, I’m believing my understanding and
experience of God’s love for me is going to be greater than I’ve ever
experienced before. And I’m putting it out there for everyone else to know
about.
I am not an orphan. I am a member of the family of God. You
are, too. Join me on this journey of prayer and seeking after Him, as we all grow in the life of being his greatly
beloved children.