Hot or Cold

Love never gives up. That’s what we were talking about last week.  Continuing on, 1 Corinthians 13:8 says, “Love never stops loving…” How beautiful is that. This is true of God’s love for us. God never stops loving us. We know that God is love, so if God stops loving it means that He stops being Himself. But we know that God never changes. Therefore, it must be true that God never stops loving.

This is the reason why we can live our lives free! We do not need to work for God’s love, it is freely given. On your best day God loves you, on your worst day God still loves you. God never stops loving you.

If God’s love is not dependent on what we do or do not do, what then makes us feel distant from God at times? Short answer is shame. Shame resulting from sin. We sin so we feel bad that we sinned because we know that we know better. But just because we know better doesn’t always mean we do better. Even the apostle Paul struggled with this, Romans 7:15-20. Separation from God is not a love issue, it’s a sin issue.

But the good news is our sin has been forgiven in Jesus Christ, all of it, past, present and future! And we have a choice, we have a choice not to be ruled by sin. Romans 6:16 says, “Don’t you realize that grace frees you to choose your own master? But choose carefully, for you surrender yourself to become a servant—bound to the one you choose to obey. If you choose to love sin, it will become your master, and it will own you and reward you with death. But if you choose to love and obey God, he will lead you into perfect righteousness.”

If you have been feeling God reaching out to you in this series, why not make the choice to love and obey Him so you can free yourself from being enslaved by sin? Loving God is not about our feelings or emotions. Love is a decision. A choice you make. You choose to love. Love is also not about words. Whilst it is nice to hear that someone loves you, it is much more meaningful when that person’s actions align with those words.

If someone says they love you, yet they ignore you when its convenient for them and ditch you when better plans come up, is that really love? Yet, we can do that sometimes with God. You know God has been speaking to you, but you choose to ignore Him or make excuses for not doing what He says. Or you have plans to go to church on Sunday but choose instead to go to brunch at that new spot that just opened. That is not love. Love prioritizes the loved one and cares what the loved one thinks or says.

We need to start caring less about what people will think or think of us. No matter what you do in life there will always be people who will have something negative to say about you. Look at Jesus. He was perfect yet people were so upset with Him they killed him. So, forget about what other people think of you and be about your Father’s business. Choose to live your life God’s way. Choose to do things God’s way. In every decision and every situation, choose to make God, God over your life. The more you walk with God and the closer you walk with Him, you will find that your love for Him will grow deeper and deeper.

Jesus said this about the last days before His return in Matthew 24:12, “Sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold.” We cannot let our love for God grow cold. We can’t let our passion for Him fizzle out. We have to stay rooted in Him. We have to realize our need of Him in every season and in every situation. That is how we stay close to God. Realizing that we cannot make it through this life without Him. We need Him.

Not only do we need God, we can choose to love Him and obey Him in every situation.

Love and blessings,

Melissa Tsingano