September 28, 2007
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Because He Chooses To…
by Max Lucado
Love. We’ve all but worn out the word. This morning I used love to describe my feelings toward my wife and toward peanut butter. Far from identical emotions. I’ve never proposed to a jar of peanut butter (though I have let one sit on my lap during a television show). Overuse has defused the word, leaving it with the punch of a butterfly wing.Biblical options still retain their starch. Scripture employs an artillery of terms for love, each one calibrated to reach a different target. Consider the one Moses used with his followers: “The LORD chose your ancestors as the objects of his love” (Deut.10:15 NLT).
This passage warms our hearts. But it shook the Hebrews’ world. They heard this: “The Lord binds himself to his people.” Hasaq speaks of a tethered love, a love attached to something or someone. I’m picturing a mom connected by a child harness to her rambunctious five-year-old as the two of them walk through the market. (I once thought the leashes were cruel; then I became a dad.) The strap serves two functions, yanking and claiming. You yank your kid out of trouble and in doing so proclaim, “Yes, he is as wild as a banshee. But he’s mine.”
In this case, God chained himself to Israel. Because the people were lovable? No. “GOD wasn’t attracted to you and didn’t choose you because you were big and important–the fact is, there was almost nothing to you. He did it out of sheer love, keeping the promise he made to your ancestors” (Deut. 7:7–8 MSG). God loves Israel and the rest of us because he chooses to.
What is your definition of love?
Comments (10)
Love is when you lay your life down for someone; when they despitefully use you and you choose to love them anyway, not because of how you may feel. Just because you do.
I catch myself doing the same thing and I said love when I really mean like. I have used the word love when I really meant lust. oops.did I say that out loud(in my younger days)? You can’t really love someone if you don’t know them and I didn’t really know them. In Salado I saw a sing at a church that said,”you give and not love but you can’t love and not give.”
Love is the hardest thing to do, yet it is something we need to DO, and also something that we NEED.
Oh ya, I must say this: I just enjoy so much Max Lucado’s writings.
John 3:16.
God is love!………..thanks
John 15:13 ~ ”Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
My definition of Love is JESUS.
^^^^^^
That was part of my answer… but I was going to go on to say that as Christians we need to ‘lay down our life’ in may small ways for others as well… listening to that ‘crazy’ person who is really lonely… giving up a coffee out, to donate to a good cause… etc… putting someone else before yourself… that is love!
God is love.
you know randy, ive given up on defining love. i have spent entire days thinking it over, to a cup of coffee, to a pipe, to the snow…
my conclusion is love is undefinable and one will only be able to comprehend it when they have found innate happiness with a person (or i am sure in some of the cases mentioned above, a deity).
Derek