Love

So, I want to table my second post about the confidence and joy we can have in the 4 separate but unified Gospel accounts of Jesus, to talk about love. I know, love, really, everyone either talks about love, in a on the surface not deep emotion, or either they take it to deep and go somewhere that love is not actually love. I know we also know everything we need to know about love too because we have the greatest example of love in the sacrifice of Christ. But, just stay with me for a few sentences and I hope that I can show love in a new light that I just discovered recently.

So I was reading a book the last few days and came across a line about love that struck me and made me think for a long time about what I knew about love. John Piper says, "Love is the oveflow of joy in God that gladly meets the needs of others". This one sentence made my head spin and also my understanding of life and what I thought I knew go round. So my love really starts in my relationship with God. For years I always thought my love for others was something on its own. But this one line opened my mind and heart to the idea that actually my love for others starts in my relationship with God. And more importantly my joy in God.

First, I could spend the next 15 blogs talking about my joy or lack there of in God but I want to focus on the love aspects. Second, I could also spend 15 blogs just cracking the topic of love for God, but again I want to focus on the connections of this joy verse my love for others. This connection is amazing when I really started to think about it. So if I truly love others like my wife, kids, or neighbors, it really must start in my joy in God overflowing in my life. This got me thinking then about when was the last time I was conscience about my joy in God. So I started to look more for the joy in my relationship with God. And that is when I started to notice my love level. When I was living a life in joy with God it started to ooze out into others and how I looked at them. Then I started to show love more and it was easier and even gave me more joy in those moments of love. So there is a connection.

And I will be honest, this is where I am at now. I have discovered that Piper is right. There is a connection with joy in God to love for others. And I challenged myself, next time it seems like I cannot love others or it is really hard to love others (which at this moment, I do not think that is actually forced love), I checked my joy in God. Finding joy in the relationship with God should be oozing out to others and if it is not, love will not be there. Is the joy we really have in God oozing out to love for others?