Just Bb...: Love is a verb....

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’...Matt 22:36-39

A verb is a word the describes an action or occurrence or indicates a state of being...
Love is a verb

Love is so much more than a mere word, it is an action. LOVE is the deepest and most guarded part of our very being. Love is the one thing we desperately search for and we fear it almost as much as we desire it!!!

--Some people have locked love up behind walls that have been built to protect their hearts because the "actions" of others have caused them to go into a lonely self preservation mode...
--Others love with reckless abandon; embracing the unlovable. They NEVER allow past hurts to change or altar their pure and honest love for others....

I have been both. (and probably everything in between)

Through a series of events in my life I decided at very young age that love was painful and I would protect myself from it at all costs...I would hurt anyone who tried to love me--I would "hurt" them before they could "hurt" me--this was my reasoning. (I thought I had it all figured out)...I refused to be a "victim" of love EVER again...

My heart was hard, and I was completely alone...I had decided that something must be horribly wrong with me as a person, so I had a very low opinion of myself...I mean, if I could not love myself, how on earth could someone else love me--It was a miserable existence that lasted for 28 years.

Then on Sept. 26th 2003 I met God...That was the first time I experienced love in my entire life. I felt His perfect "AGAPE" love for me and I realized how wrong I had been. It was overwhelming and perfect...It was unconditional... I remember thinking WOW, how beautiful...I wanted EVERYONE to find this love!!!!

I was so "in Love" and it was that love that demanded action...I couldn't keep this all to myself--I had to tell everyone...

I was a young Christian who had just found love...true love and this was all I could think about and all I could talk about. I quickly realized, as I was telling everyone about this love, that I had to do more than just say, "God loves you and so do I" I had to express this love through my actions... I mean I, like everyone else, have grossly overused the word "love" by saying things like, "I love shoes, and I love chocolate"

But this....THIS WAS SO MUCH MORE...this was true love...not a strong admiration or desire. This really meant something, and I desperately wanted people to feel the purity of Jesus' love through me so I began to look at what He did to show His love for people...

AND

That leads me to the woman at the well...Jesus didn't rebuke her for the 5 husbands or even for "shacking up" with the latest man in her life....NO He accepted her and LOVED her--NOR did He participate in the discrimination and hate that His fellow Jews had toward her and her people...Love is a Verb

AND

Then to the woman who was caught committing adultery. Jesus didn't condem her though she was completely exposed... Caught in the very act of adultery...the "religious" people said STONE HER....but Jesus SIMPLY loved her and said I don't condem you, now go and sin no more; (something that I'm sure she, as a human, was completely unable to do) so He went a step further and DIED so that even SHE could be with Him for all eternity...Love is a VERB.

Jesus NEVER turned His back on anyone EVER--as a matter of fact He made a special effort to be at that well--heck He even went into the tombs to minister to a man full of demons...a man that the entire community had isolated and condemned.--LOVE is a VERB

The Word clearly says...Love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as you love yourself--I'm convinced that the way we love others is a direct reflection of how much we love ourselves and, ultimately, how much we love GOD--

People are always searching for that "God experience"...that special "encounter with God" They are going from church to church....one revival after another....But they just can't seem to find it.

I suggest you go stand by a well or in a tomb, where the broken, unwanted, and undesirables are--Go accept a human that an entire people has rejected--THAT is how you experience God--Go protect someone from the religious NUTS who have their hands full of stones...cocked and ready to kill.--THAT is how you experience God.--Go love someone that no one else will--THAT is how you experience God

After all, God is LOVE...
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.--1 John 4:8

LOVE...that is how you experience GOD

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.--1 Pet 4:8