A Day By The Sea

Thoughts on Love...

 When we talk about love, we naturally think about the reasons to love, we think about why we love. Love has a cause for us, a cause that makes our hearts feel a certain way, a cause that inclines us, attracts us, and even compels us. We find an appeal, an irrestable urge, something that makes us want it. We are drawn to its qualities, its intrinsic value, or the satisfaction it gives us. Love means something to us because of certain reasons. Maybe its certain objects, activities, or people we have love for. But we love because there is something we like.
 
The reason why God's love is hard to grasp and even harder to accept is because it violates every aspect of the notion we understand the word to represent. Where we find reason, he has none. Where we have cause, he needs none. Where we are attracted and see appeal, he is not enticed. As fallen creatures, we have no intrinsic worth. We don't have anything valuable to offer. We have no inherent value. We have nothing to condone worthiness. We have nothing good to report, no great merits or purpose for which we might be esteemed, no accomplishment or deed by which we commend ourselves.
 
However, it is under these desperate circumstances that we find love from our Creator. But, if his love defies our very understanding of the concept, then how are we to understand it? If we look for love, but don't understand what we are looking for, how are we to know what it is? How are we to know what it is like? How are we able to know it is real?
 
While trying to define, find evidence, and perceive the reality of God's love, we inadvertently decompose what it actually is. If we look to understand it by our mental faculties, we will distort it. If we compare it to our life experiences, we will discredit it. If we seek to rationalize it, we will disapprove of it. God's love is the most radical, illogical, and scandalizing notion in the world. A notion that defies every part of our existence. A notion that is beyond our comprehension. A notion that does conform to any principle we know. 
 
I think this is why God's love is so crazy. If it was definable according to our perception, it would be fallible. If it was comparable to our experiences, it would be corruptible. If it was characterized by criteria, it would be conditional. Only a love so furious, relentless, and free could be divine. A love that despite our grandest effort, eludes our ability to capture in words. A love so great, we can find no representation adequate to relate to it. A love so great, we naturally reject its reality. A love so great, we are afraid to embrace it. But a love so great, how could we not want it.
 
A love this unreal is so hard to accept because we equate love with a reason. Nobody loves something/someone for no reason. If God loves us, we tend to associate that with a cause. We look to substantiate it in order to justify it. In an effort to do this, Christians will usually point to Jesus as the reason for God's love toward his people. But John 3:16 establishes that God's love antedates Christ and was not a result of the Messiah but was really his purpose for sending him. God's love did not appear on the scene in response to something or someone. It is part of something much older, something more sacred. Something that defies time, reason, and person.
 
While we might define aspects if God's love, its reality is truly indescribable. We can only say that it is all-powerful, universal, and eternal. Nothing can prevent it, no one is exempt from it, and it never had a beginning and it will never have an end...it has always been. God's love just is...so accept it because it's already yours!
 
Here are some of my favorite Christian songs on the out-of-this-world, un-explainable love of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I hope you enjoy them even a fraction of as much as I do. Music has a way of speaking to the heart, and one of the best way to speak to the heart about love is through music.
 
“One Thing Remains” by Kristian Stanfill
“Your Love Is Better Than Life” by Fee
“What Love Really Means” by J.J. Heller


Psalm 136 CEV
1 Praise the Lord! He is good.
 God’s love never fails.
2 Praise the God of all gods.
 God’s love never fails.
3 Praise the Lord of lords.
 God’s love never fails.
4 Only God works great miracles.
 God’s love never fails.
5 With wisdom he made the sky.
 God’s love never fails.
6 The Lord stretched the earth over the ocean.
 God’s love never fails.
7 He made the bright lights in the sky.
 God’s love never fails.
8 He lets the sun rule each day.
 God’s love never fails.
9 He lets the moon and the stars rule each night.
 God’s love never fails.
10 God struck down the first-born in every Egyptian family.
 God’s love never fails.
11 He rescued Israel from Egypt.
 God’s love never fails.
12 God used his great strength and his powerful arm.
 God’s love never fails.
13 He split the Red Sea apart.
 God’s love never fails.
14 The Lord brought Israel safely through the sea.
 God’s love never fails.
15 He destroyed the Egyptian king and his army there.
 God’s love never fails.
16 The Lord led his people through the desert.
 God’s love never fails.
17 Our God defeated mighty kings.
 God’s love never fails.
18 And he killed famous kings.
 God’s love never fails.
19 One of them was Sihon, king of the Amorites.
 God’s love never fails.
20 Another was King Og of Bashan.
 God’s love never fails.
21 God took away their land.
 God’s love never fails.
22 He gave their land to Israel,the people who serve him.
 God’s love never fails.
23 God saw the trouble we were in.
 God’s love never fails.
24 He rescued us from our enemies.
 God’s love never fails.
25 He gives food to all who live.
 God’s love never fails.
26 Praise God in heaven!
 God’s love never fails.