"I say yes...you say no..."

Forgive me father, it has been two weeks since my last blog...

I really need to put this in my weekly plan (Ryan) so that i mark out the time to just do this. Otherwise, it goes by the wayside as the "urgency" of so many other things crowd out the blog.

So, last night at the Wednesday Night SHIFT_ I did something that is pretty uncharacteristic of me...
For you who know me, I'm pretty laid back and don't typically have a confrontational tone to my communication/teaching.
However, and maybe this is because I'm getting old and cranky, I firmly planted my foot in the sit down part of our student body last night...

I was talking about the love of God, (yes, I know, the irony is comical) and what our response to his love is to be.

For those of you who read this who were there, this will be a bit of a re-run, but none the less, for context sake, I press on.

For many of us, our problem when it comes to responding to God's love is; we put Him on this sliding scale of relationship worthiness...similar to what we'd use for any other potential suitor.
Example: when we're "falling" for someone we base much of our opinion or impression of them on what we see...are they visually appealing? etc...

With God, it's like dating in the dark..."he's a good kisser and all, but when the lights came on, it's like, on wow, um, he's not like the people I usually date..."

We can't see God and so when we are, pardon the term, groping around trying to determine what he's like and keep getting bad advice from other people who've never seen Him and base their opinions solely on hearsay instead of firsthand experience...
We don't like what we think we can "see" and typically avoid any further interaction.

Or we base our opinion on how He makes us feel or what He can do for us...
And when we use this flawed system of evaluation on God, 9 times out of 10, he's not even going to register.

You see, here's something we usually don't figure out until we've made a series of poor relationship decisions or until we're older and bear the scars of time; you fall in love with a person based on who they are, not: How they look, What they can do for you, or How they make you feel.

Because, looks don't last...I should know, I used to be smokin' hot!
Stuff (possessions) loses its luster and appeal,
Feelings are a false indicator; feelings are just feelings...

When it comes to love, it's all about choice.

We choose to love, not; "Oh today I feel like it, so I guess I'm in love...but tomorrow I might not be..."

Every single day we must choose to love, if we don't, on those days we don't feel like it, we probably will walk away, disillusioned, confused, angry and bitter.
And then turn around and jump right back into a relationship based on the same criteria...my what an intelligent bunch we are...

So, how does this all shake out with God? We have to take this infinite, all powerful being off the sliding scale of relationship worthiness and chose to love Him, in the same way that we must choose to love one another, every waking moment of every day.
And like in any other relationship, another primary factor to falling deeply in love is, TIME.

See, we can become infatuated with God, much like we do with people...We like the way He makes us feel, He does stuff for us, but when the feelings fade and the stuff He does isn't as obvious or it becomes, just not enough, we quickly fall out of "love" with Him.

...and this is where the foot gets firmly lodged...We've gotta stop farting around and commit ourselves to knowing God.
Not knowing of Him, or about Him, but in our brains, hearts and soul, spending the time, making the commitment to know Him! The Bible tells us, from cover to cover, that the only worthwhile pursuit in life is to know God.
"...but Pastor Troy, this sounds a lot harder than simply loving Him..."
Is it? When you're truly in love, you commit everything to being with the person, to knowing them...
In fact many of you know exactly what it's like to be in love...because,
you commit all your time to your: sport, music, theater, homework, vanity, so-called relationship, recreation, entertainment...
You love the world around you, but you're avoiding the one who loves you most.

God desperately loves you! And He's shown it, over and over again...all He asks in return is for your love and devotion.
The only question you have to ask yourself is, are you willing to choose invest the time, in spite of what you don't know about Him?

It's a yes or no answer.