Love Is Not…

Sunday-July 10, 2011

God’s love is not…

envious, boastful, arrogant or rude. Look around. Has God not created what you see? Has God not made possible the things we’ve created for ourselves? Today as I heard a sermon (thank you Joyce) on the parable of the sower in Matthew 13, I was reminded of God’s willingness to sow seed everywhere; in good soil, rocky soil and everything in between. But if we get hung up on the type of soil that defines us, we’ve bypassed God’s generosity to give regardless of where we are in this journey and our ability to receive his word. Who among us is not joyous of a neighbor’s achievements? Who among us is not proud of our participation concerning in-reach for the church and outreach to world? Who among us is not considerate of the feelings of others? No doubt, all of the aforementioned are good soil qualities. Fortunately for us the sower doesn’t really consider the quality of the ground and God does not hold our thoughts, words, feeling, and actions, against us. Rather he helps us to understand that the word is being sown everywhere so that everyone who has ears has an opportunity to receive it and when you do – the rocks will eventually be laid aside, the thorns will be pruned, and the weeds will be pulled away.

Isaiah 55:11 So shall my word go forth and it shall not return to me void, but accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

1Corinthinas 1:26-31 Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”