This week as I was thinking about what I was going to blog about I kept coming back to the subject of love. The word love is thrown around like a rag doll nowadays. I LOVE my i-phone, I LOVE Italian food, , or I LOVE….we can all fill in the blank with anything. Love is defined as strong affection for another arising out of kinship, warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion. Do we really have a kinship with our i-phone? I want to tell you a heart warming story of a Higher Love.

I recently read part of Franklin Graham’s book “Rebel With A Cause”. While reading it Franklin tells a story about his life and the love of his dad. Franklin Graham regrets it now but he lived life on the wild side and was a bit of a rebel in his younger years. One day he went riding up to his dad’s house on his Harley Davidson to ask for some money. He was dressed in his leathers, dusty and bearded, he burst into his father’s living room. He then walked right into a meeting of his dad’s executive board. Without hesitation, Billy Graham identified Franklin as his son. Franklin’s dad then proudly introduced his son to every member of his executive board. Franklin says that the love and respect his father showed him that day never left him, even during his rebellious years.

If you are a parent, you know that your kids don’t have to earn your love. To withhold love for our own selfish purposes is to follow the enemy, not God. God’s love for us is undeserved. We did nothing to earn it, there is no good in us to merit it. In all our relationships we are to show the same kind of love God shows us. He loved us enough that he sent his son to die. He loves us enough to get us through the good and bad times, he loves us enough to have mercy on us when we don’t deserve it. HE LOVES US!!Plain and simple. There is nothing we can do to make him love us any less. Just as much as he loves us we are to love others. Christ said to Love your neighbor as yourself and to love God with all your heart, mind, and soul.

 

Realize this today, the same way Billy Graham show loved to his son and introduced him to his executive board, Christ loves you and wants to introduce you to the Father, no matter how much baggage you carry,what you look like, where you come from, or what you have done. JESUS LOVE YOU!!

 

 

STEVE-OH
LOVE JESUS/LOVE PEOPLE