Jan 25, 2012

To simply say that Jesus is the answer is so.... so unsatisfying somehow.
What does he have to do with love anyway? Right?
You mean to say that this hole in my heart is for him? I thought it was for love, for romance.
Jesus is not about romance is he? Yes, yes, and yes!!! His story is the greatest romance story ever told.
How can that be? I mean, he is, well, Holy. He is untouchable. He is religious. Right?
As the Son of God, yes Holy, but also very much Wrong answer! Because he did set that aside.
Jesus is walking talking breathing flesh and blood, just like you and me, and he is also love incarnate.
Love more than any other romance or dream of fulfillment that anyone could imagine.
His story is about his heart. It’s about the loss of his beloved and the daring rescue to get her back.

The biggest lie that the church has swallowed is that Jesus is not really – like us; human, normal, real.
Oh it’s a subtle lie, to be sure. But a lie, an insidious lie nonetheless.
We’ve put Jesus on a sacred pedestal that makes him unreachable somehow.
And in doing this we’ve effectively put God back behind the veil and once again separated ourselves from Him even though He came to be with us.
What the heck? Didn’t anyone ever wonder about that? I mean, he came to be with us and now we’re pushing him away by making him ‘Holy’.
I don’t know about you but I think that’s kind of the opposite effect he was looking for.
Yet we are so lost that we are convinced it is better to hide from him than to believe in his love for us.
So we practice religion and try to kill our hearts.
How did we all become the Pharisees anyway? (the only ones that he ever had issues with if you recall)

So the battle rages, and the story continues. Heart seeking heart, love drawing love. Failure is not an option.
He is looking for those who still want truth. Those that have not given up.
Those who will believe their hearts and follow the desire that he placed there.
Because it will lead them to him.

If Jesus has not set your heart free and fulfilled that desire for the perfect love, then you don’t know Him.
You simply do not know him.
You may have read a book about him, understood it to a degree, assented to the ideals, and chosen to join the group and follow the rules.
But reading a book, gathering knowledge, joining a group, and following rules, does not make a relationship.
If knowledge were the answer, we would never have been kicked out of Eden.

All reverence for him that is due as a Holy God, but he set that aside to be with us...
I think that might be the biggest hint that we are important to him. Very important.
He was in heaven but his love for us was too great to allow the separation.
So he became a man and he came to us because we were captive in our own prison.
We had rejected him in favor of ourselves and our desires but we found we’d cut off our nose to spite our face.
And we have lived in a kind of limbo between fantasy and desire, and the painful reality of our desperate need and seeking fulfillment elsewhere.
Why oh why then do we continue to believe the lie and seek for another when his is the only love that is enough.

Paul said these things over and over in many ways, and until now it was only religious doctern and rhetoric to me. I didn’t get it.
I’m sorry, but I really hate religious doctern. Even those words I hate. Because what they are is separation from the reality of Love.

In rethinking this all, I have come to the conclusion that it’s good to worship love.
Not love – but – Love.
The Love.
His name is Jesus.
(by the way we can still have our love here and now with one another,,, but with him there really is a ‘happily ever after’)