… SO … I suggest we make love our aim, and daily pray for the Lord to give us His strength to live that way, because His strength is made perfect in our weaknesses. Plus we can use all the help we can get! The other day I was watching a non-Christian fictional story about a surfing manufacturer’s beginnings. I shan’t bother you with the plot, except it was set somewhere that hubby and I have been to, and we’ve seen those particular waves. Sooo cool and incredibly beautiful – just like jade jelly. 😊 

Anyhoo, back to the film. There were these two brothers who loved each other deeply … it took half the film to establish that fact. And one of them is out surfing in a surfing competition and the other is watching in the crowd on the beach. Man that surf is so-oo bad … it is like … out there!!  And the surfing brother gets dumped by this massive wave, and he does not come up. He is drowning. 

Instantly his older brother starts running. He strips off his outer clothes and he leaps into the incredibly dangerous surf to go and rescue his brother. A crowd of people are watching the surfers and someone yells at him -“What do you think you are doing man? You’ll die too. That’s nuts!” The older brother hits the water and yells back: “THAT’S MY BROTHER OUT THERE!”  …  … I cried! That whole scene hit me right in the spirit;  because that’s what God Himself did for all of us. Ya might want to stop and thank Him for it.

Meanwhile, back to the surfing saga, the older brother saved his sibling, of course … because it was fictional! And I started to think that it was a shame that lately, the only illustration of the power, strength and steadfastness of Love, the way God sees it, had to be fictional. Why are Christians settling for jovial, pleasant and nice, when there is more? One of the most deadly things we can do to our faith is to be comfortable and safe, and yet we all strive for that end. 🤔  

Lately I’ve been watching the rocks cry out in some of the story lines that have come up in whatever I’m reading or watching. I’ve come to the conclusion that this world’s rocks are now shouting at the top of their lungs, because we are very bad at communicating what love and faith look like to the people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet! We are often all talk and no action. And so the Lord has to use the-people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet to teach and inspire US. Have we forgotten the story of the Good Samaritan already?? You know, Jews looked down on Samaritans, I think that’s why the Lord Jesus picked them for an illustration! Sadly, when we make Christian movies, we don’t seem to be able to produce stuff with strong, pithy story lines, so we end up looking weak, soft, soppy and wobbly. 

More’s the pity. We have the greatest story of all, and it’s true. As we both know, Calvary’s story is not about Jesus looking like some kind of a softie! Christ was a strong powerful man that strode into that temple with only a whip in His hands and scared the greed and avarice right out of those money lenders and closed down their miserable businesses. It was a real man who faced that cross, and bore all that pain, and still loved the people who did it to Him! We simply must stop thinking of the Lord Jesus as a nice man with blonde hair and blue eyes in an oversized nightie. He held His own with fishermen. Meanwhile I don’t know too many people who could have kept up with His schedule for three and a half years!

Back to my point! That surfing movie I watched illustrates the kind of love the Lord Jesus is looking for from us. The kind of love that would run unreservedly into danger, without thought, because our brother or sister in Christ is in danger. We just gotta learn to love each other like that. That’s the place where your problem becomes my problem – where I care about your soul, and your life, more than my own safety and reputation. We won’t be able to keep people out of our churches when we love like that. 

John 15:12-13. “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 13:34&35 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” 

Can you see that the way we love each another is the very best kind of advertising – ever! We cannot pretend this kind of love because it is HIS KIND OF LOVE. And we can’t skip over the process, either. Father God has been so generous to His family. Most of us have interesting  (??) immediate earthly family members we can practice on. Because if we can’t love our families of origin then the church family is in big trouble.

And yes, I know personally from my own experience, that most of us have origin family stories that would blow anyone’s mind. Moving on… we must always remember that He’s the God of the impossible. He simply loo-oo-oo-oo-oo-ves 💕 doing stuff we think He can’t do. 💕 Just to prove us wrong … teehee. 🤣 Let’s start each new day asking Him to be strong in us in the area of loving, because we are all weak there. 👋🏻

‘Lord, please give us all Your kind of love. A love that is willing to die for our brothers and sisters. We are not good at Your kind of love Lord and we need Your help, thank you. Amen.