capturing God

God made Himself simple for us.

He poured Himself into a single word that captures His essence and His mission, His reason and His purpose for us. This word is the closest we will ever come to capturing God.

This word is... love.

If God made Himself simple, then why do we make Him complicated?  Why do we wrap Him in all these other things? 

What of all the good working, generous giving, prophetic teaching, dynamic preaching, merciful serving, and strategic evangelizing? All these "ings" are nothings if they do not first find their centers inside the love of God.

Paul wrote more succinctly, "the greatest of these is love."

I have spent the greatest portion of my sabbatical from so-called ministry learning to be loved by God.  This, I am discovering, sets the boundaries for my own capacity to love others. In other words, if I desire to love God and others more deeply, then I must choose to experience His love for me more completely.

I cannot give what I don't have and I do not have what I refuse to receive. Same with you.

So, what's in the way?

For me, at least, the misunderstanding of two words has obscured my view of God.

The first, is ministry.

Many if not most of us (we who call ourselves Christians) will expire in this place where motion and activity - things we call ministry - have squeezed the life out of our passion for God. Here, I believe is why:

When we rely upon the things we are doing or the communities where we are soaking, a sense of autonomy can slip in under cover of night. When satisfaction with our service or complacency in our communities replaces our desperation for God, our hearts harden around the idea that the love of God is supplemental, not fundemental. Our ability to love others is proportionately impared to the degree that we have lost sight of our desperate need to receive God's love.

In sum, your ministry may be an idol and you may be making servants of the people you claim to serve.  

As Blackerby notes, "We either love men or we use them."

Speaking of love.

I have long struggled to receive the love of God because I have pressed against Him the American template for the same.  

I've failed to biblical-ly challenge the notion that God's love is a whimsical and emotionally charged sentimental blubbering over the top of some cresecendoing score.

The love of God is nothing of the sort. It is willful and deliberate. Self-sacrificing and furious. It is from Him, by Him and for Him. There is nothing soft and syrupy about a love that pins Himself to a Cross.

And there is nothing small about His raging pursuit of a man who would choose only to receive a fraction of the portion He offers.  

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[Air Jordans]

He who loses faith, loses all.