Crazy Love

In this passage, we see that John questions whether it is possible to truly have God’s love in you if you have no compassion for the poor.

David Livingston, a missionary to Africa during the 1800s, once said during a speech to students at Cambridge University, “People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa.… I never made a sacrifice.

Something mysterious, even supernatural must happen in order for genuine love for God to grow in our hearts. The Holy Spirit has to move in our lives.

We like finding refuge in what we already have rather than in what we hope God will provide. But when Christ says to count the cost of following Him, it means we must surrender everything. It means being willing to go without an extra tunic or a place to sleep at night, and sometimes without knowing where we are going.

God wants us to trust Him with abandon. He wants to show us how He works and cares for us. He wants to be our refuge.

People who are obsessed with God have an intimate relationship with Him. They are nourished by God’s Word throughout the day because they know that forty minutes on Sunday is not enough to sustain them for a whole week, especially when they will encounter so many distractions and alternative messages.

The fact is, I need God to help me love God.

As we begin to focus more on Christ, loving Him and others becomes more natural. As long as we are pursuing Him, we are satisfied in Him. It is when we stop actively loving Him that we find ourselves restless and gravitating toward other means of fulfillment.

It is a remarkable cycle: Our prayers for more love result in love, which naturally causes us to pray more, which results in more love….