Imagine being in a relationship with a man that tells you that he loves you with all his heart, that your are the most important thing in the world to him and that he is committed to spending the rest of his life with you, sounds like pure love, right? Now imagine that the relationship started off great but now that same man barely calls you, and when he does he only talks to you for a couple of minutes and then he rushes off somewhere. Imagine that instead of spending time with you he rather wash and wax his car or play video games with his friends. Imagine that when he does finally takes you out you notice that he’s checking out other women. Then to top it all off he never listens to you or respects your opinion, does this still sound like pure love to you? I’m sure it doesn’t; it sounds like a love that has been tainted (polluted) with selfishness and disrespect.
Now think about your relationship with God, is it tainted? Do you spend time with Him everyday or do you spend most of your time hanging with the girls or getting your hair and nails done? When you read His Word do you believe it, trust it and do what it says or do you pick and choose what you’re going to believe and then live your life anyway you want? You can’t say your relationship with God is pure if you are letting worldly things such as sex and vanity into your life; anything that we put before God becomes an idol, anything.
The good new is that God’s love for us is the purest love imaginable; the bible tells us that God is love (I John 4:16), that nothing can separate us from His love (Romans 8:39), it tells us that His love is everlasting (Jeremiah 31:3) and my favorite is Ephesians 5:1 (MSG) were it uses the word extravagant to describe how God loves us.
Ephesians 5:1
… Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us…
An extravagant love is a love that exceeds the bounds of reason, a love that goes beyond what is deserved or justifiable, it’s unrestrained, fantastic, wild and reckless; God loves you like that. He wants to spend so much time with you that He sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross to pay for your sin so that you can spend eternity with Him in heaven. WOW! That’s pure love.
So, does God expect you to love Him like He loves you? No, He knows we can’t love like that, only He can. To demonstrate our love for him He only wants two things from us – the first one is time.
He wants to talk with you everyday, He wants you to get to know Him intimately through prayer and reading your bible. The second thing He wants is obedience, in John 14:15 Jesus says, "If you love me, you will obey what I command.” When Jesus said this He was being very direct. He didn’t want anyone to misunderstand Him, He said it plain and simple; “if you love me, you will do what I command”. That’s why He wants you to spend time reading His word, because you have to know what His commands are before you can be obedient and follow them.
Jesus’ death on the cross shows us the extravagance of His love; now let our obedience show him ours
Psalm 119:137-144 (MSG)
You are right and you do right, GOD;
your decisions are right on target.
You rightly instruct us in how to live
ever faithful to you…
I'm too young to be important,
but I don't forget what you tell me…
The way you tell me to live is always right;
help me understand it so I can live to the fullest.
