I’VE FALLEN IN LOVE & I CAN’T GET UP! (but All You Need Is Love . . . so What's Love Got To Do With It?)
Love is just a little thing, shaped like a lizard. It wraps its tail around your heart and nibbles at your gizzard. Okay, maybe that's not the official Webster's dictionary definition but you've gotta remember I grew up in Kentucky and that was pretty deep for us.
I started writing this on Valentines Day. By the time you get this, we’ll already be getting gifts for loved ones to celebrate the next big holiday . . . April Fools Day! (By the way, as hard as it is to believe, I still have 5 openings to speak for Church April Fools Day Banquets this year. I have to overbook those like the airlines do with seats for no-shows. The Ground Hogs Day Banquet last month was a real tear jerker!)
I had just finished playing tennis for a couple hours and walked into SavOn Drugstore. I was looking pretty disheveled and sweaty and I noticed the girl behind the cash register kept glancing at me. I was in line behind two or three people. At first, my human nature wanted to think that because I'd been working out and playing tennis I was somehow especially attractive to members of the opposite sex.
Stop laughing. (See, I know what you're thinking.) So I reached the front of the line and one of the first things she said to me was "I kept my promise." Now, I'm trying to think, what promise could that have been? I've never been involved in any harassment lawsuit and I couldn't think of any new policy SavOn had where they were holding their employees to higher standards that required them to tell potential customers about promises they had kept. Then she reminded me that she had heard me speak some five years earlier when she was a teenager at a True Love Waits rally. She made a commitment (along with many other teenagers at that rally) that, by God’s grace, from that point forward she would wait until marriage to have sex. She told me she was engaged & that even though it hadn't been easy, she had kept her promise!
That was so encouraging. I thought about that . . . True Love Waits. It is not just some mushy feeling that wraps its tail around your heart. It is a choice. Love is not something you fall into that you just happen to fall out of when the other person doesn’t treat you the way you want them to. John 13:35 says that others will know we're Christians not because we wear a certain kind of clothes or listen to a certain kind of music or even can quote all kinds of verses and have all kinds of knowledge and intellect. No, the reason is because we have love for one another.
. . . such as the Osbournes, SquareBob or the Garden Channel . . .
I want to challenge you and encourage you to remember that we won’t be as successful in fulfilling the Great Commission (that’s the one at the end of Matthew that says to GO into all the world making disciples) until we fulfill the Great Commandment to love God with all our heart and others as well. I'm not just talking about the people that love you or your family that is sometimes hard to get along with. I'm talking about people that you even consider to be your enemies. Jesus Christ told His followers to love your enemies. Look for ways you can do good for them. Bake them cookies. Give them a gift certificate or something that shares Christ's love. Continue to be nice to them even when they're ugly and mean to you.
I read about 7-year-old twins. One had a serious accident and an operation was necessary, but he had lost a lot of blood. He had a rare blood type and they needed to find blood to match it. The only blood they knew of that would be acceptable would be his brother's. So they came up to his twin brother, not able to totally explain the situation. They let him know that they needed to use his blood so that his brother could live and asked if it was okay. He paused and thought for a very, very long time, longer than they expected. Then, with strong conviction, he said a solemn yes. They strapped him in and as they were taking the blood from him, big tears welled up in his eyes. They asked him why he was sad, why he was crying. Did it hurt? He said no, it didn't hurt. Well, why are you crying, they asked. "Well, I was just wondering how long it would be before I died."
You see, he thought they meant all of his blood. In his loving heart he was willing to give up all of his blood, lay down his life so that his brother could live. That's the same thing that Jesus did for us. He laid down His life, gave up His blood on the cross so that we could live. He made a decision that He would rather die for us - experience all the tortures, all the pains of the Cross, the literal hell we deserved - than live without us. John 15:13 says, "Greater love has no one than this, that someone would lay down their life for a friend." That's the greatest love we could give. I want you to think about laying down your life . . . not dying physically but rather letting your selfish nature die. Think of some ways that you could lay down your life or your selfishness (give up a TV show, such as the Osbournes, SquareBob or the Garden Channel, to spend time with someone who is hurting) so that they could experience God's life and live for all eternity.
The percentage of U.S. high school students who say they are virgins rose to 54.1% during the ten-year period of 1991-2001 from 45.6%, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention September 27, 2002.