What God Taught Me About Love Today

SO, today has just been an AMAZING day!!! As the title implies this post is going to be about what I have learned about love today, and you may be thinking that you can't really learn that much about love in just a day, well, I am here to challenge that notion.

So, today as I started my day, I read from a book called A Kingdom Called Desire by Rick McKinley, and in my chapter that I was reading he talks about the Old Testament preheats and how they would use imagery of prostitutes leaving their lover and says "The image is harsh, but we are both of those: orphaned and whores. We are desperate and needy without God. We are unfaithful and easily persuaded to love a myriad of things other than God. That is what makes grace all the more attractive. Grace: God's love for us, the orphaned whore whom he makes His bride." As I finished reading that I thought, what an amazing picture of redemption, that God would take us for His bride even with all of the unfaithfulness that we display on a daily basis... I was wonderstruck at the implications of this truth. To know that I am found in the saving love of Jesus Christ is a beautiful reality that I get to live in. To know that the only Lover that I could ever need has lavished His love on me in such a way, is mind blowing.

Then, after that I went to church and heard my uncle Steve Collard preach a wonderful sermon about the need for love in the church. I was sincerely convicted but the reality that without love we are truly nothing. I could do a million wonderful things for God, but if I do them with pride in my heart and mind and don't have love, it is all USELESS!!! What a convicting word from the Bible. And I was also just amazed at the truth of what love really is, if you get a chance, go read 1 Corinthians 13 and just sit in awe of the amazing attributes that true love displays.

After church I had the opportunity to go to Frankenmuth, MI to celebrate my Grandparents Beverlee and Dick Collard and their 60 years of marriage that they have shared together. I was reminded of what love between a husband and wife should really look like. To endure 60 years with another person is a great accomplishment. It was such a touching day to just see how they have just grown in love for one another and to see how they still care so deeply for each other. It was such a wonderful sight, and an amazing thing to be a part of and I will never forget the lessons they have taught me about what it means to love.

After leaving Frankenmuth I went to a fellowship group for 20 somethings called Lighthouse Collective and it was amazing the way that God orchestrated it for me to hear an amazing sermon about His persistent love for all humankind, as demonstrated by both Hosea and Jesus, and how Hosea is just a physical representation of the pursuit God has for all of humanity. What a beautiful way to end the day, to be able to come home and rest in the knowledge of a God who would chase me to hell and back to win my heart to Him, and how I could never deserve for Him to woo me half as much as He does. I am so thankful for His unending love and for the way He will never stop pursuing me. Thanks God for an amazing day, I can't wait to see what He teaches me next!!!

FREEDOM!!!

So, I have recently started reading the Bible cover to cover in 90 days and I found myself in the book of Exodus today confronted with an amazing truth. God desires freedom for His people!!! So often we read the Bible and think of it as a collection of old stories, but I believe that those stories hold deep truth about the reality of the world. I was reading, and I was overwhelmed with the idea that God heard the Israelites in Egypt and worked so many different miracles for them to be free!!! He cared for them, and desired to liberate them from their oppressive existence, which makes me wonder why so many people who claim to be "the people of God" are still stuck in captivity...

The God who so desperately longed to free the Israelites, sent His son Jesus Christ that we would know what freedom was, and not just physical freedom, but freedom from sin and death. What a beautiful gift we have been given. We have the opportunity to live freely in relationship with the God of the universe!!! It also excites me and gives me passion for the work that I will have the opportunity to do in Cambodia, when I get to be an active agent for freedom there!!! I praise God that He has given us freedom and I hope that today you find freedom in Him!

"When Death Dies"

So, one of my new favorite bands Gungor has a new song called "When Death Dies" and in the chorus it says "When death dies, all things live" which got me thinking. What if we lived like death was already dead? So often we live in fear of death and the reality of death in this world, but do we really have anything to fear. Jesus says that He is life, so if I have the Holy Spirit of God moving and living inside of me, what is there to fear. He has already killed death and taken the pain so that we may live free of fear.

I think that if we engaged the reality of this truth we would find so much freedom in life that we currently lack. I pray that little by little we become radically transformed followers of Christ who live with the Life inside of us. May we begin to live in a way that demonstrates to the world that DEATH IS DEAD!!!!

It's been a long time....

So, I haven't updated this thing in almost 2 years, but I think I am going to try my hand at blogging one more time. Again, the name of this blog is "Nothing Profound" so, I hope this stuff isn't too earth shaking, but I would like to have a place where I can write and share with all of the people of the world. Tonight is a football game and guess who doesn't care... THIS GUY!!! I am so tired of people putting so much stock in silly games.... People are willing to shed blood over a game, and I just don't get it. I just wish that people would stop dividing and come together... Anyway, I am happy to be sitting in my living room spending time with my family. They are all great, and I just love them all so much. Anyways, this is primarily to say that I am back and I will be blogging fairly regularly so, keep an eye out and I will catch you later.