The Roots of Love

Verse: For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.  Therefore consider carefully how you listen. - Luke 8:17-18

Topic: Why is holiness important?

Personal Piece: So I heard something really convicting this week: God is love and therefore everything he does is love.  This means every rule, punishment and judgment, every time I lose my keys or the internet doesn't work, every time I don't get home from work until one AM, or people at work don't do their job or my manager does something that makes everyone else's job easier...except for mine.  Yeah that's still love because God is incapable of anything but.  I was especially challenged with this right before posting this entry.  Anyone who knows me, knows I have a unique ability to break the internet.  By this I mean at random times it just decides to work for everyone but me.  I was having one of those moments trying to respond to a comment on the last post (I never did get it to work and eventually had to post the reply in the post itself).  I was so angry by the end I couldn't even think about writing this post.  I just can't understand how that could be an act of love.  And yet it must be because God is incapable of anything other.

Thought of the Week:  So God is love we all know that, we've all recited that about a million times but have we ever taken the time to really understand what that means?  One look at the cross and we think we've got it all figured out.  I don't say that to demean the cross in anyway.  There is no greater demonstration of love in all of creation or all of time that can come anywhere close to comparing. And yet it goes so far beyond that moment.  It doesn't start there and it doesn't end there.  What love could lead our God to that point of death and what love could continue to love us even after experiencing the abandonment of his own father.  We could never fully grasp it.

His love goes so far beyond that moment and yet that is often the moment that we remain on.  Often for the entirety of our Christian lives.  As American Christians we can really get caught up on that romantic and sacrificial love that Jesus displayed in that moment.  It is a horrifically beautiful moment.  It is a moment we should remind ourselves frequently but so many other beautiful qualities sprout from that moment.  It is as if we are spending our entire lives focusing on just the trunk of the tree but never going beyond it.  Below there is an entire root system of life and above are branches filled with beauty.

If the trunk is the cross, then the branches are grace and the roots are the law.  You need all three for a thriving tree.  The branches are what always draws the eye first.  The flowers and leaves and the way the branches wrap around the sky can even be distracting.  In the same way grace draws the eye, we all love grace, we love the idea of getting the reward without the work, we love the idea of love and grace is a rather lovey dovey expression of it.  We all want to experience grace, we all want to climb up in its branches and experience it's freedom.  We want to view the cross from the height of grace but we rarely want to view the cross from the depths of the law.

As beautiful as grace is law is the roots.  Anyone who knows anything about trees knows that the roots are the most important part of the tree.  Even though it is mostly unseen the average root system is often just as big as the tree itself.  I was challenged this week by a friend who reminded me that we can't entirely focus just on what can be seen above ground.  Holiness is just as much a part of God as love is.  Holiness is another expression of his love but it is one that we don't like to give much credence to.  We must be careful not to write off the Old Testament just because we don't like what it says.

When I was a teenager I had a difficult time reconciling the God of the old testament with the God of the new because to me they seemed like two different God's.  One seemed judgmental and the other full of love.  I wanted the God of the New Testament but it seemed I only encountered the God of the Old.  I really struggled with verses that talk about God's consistency.  How could I be sure God would be the same tomorrow if I wasn't even sure he was the same as yesterday.  Then I learned what true love is and it's nothing like what the world tells us it is.

True love requires sacrifice, it requires purity and sometimes it causes heartache.  Love can bring us to the end of ourselves and push us to our absolute limits.  Love can bring us to tears and it is not always pleasant, true love is overwhelming but also very much worth it.  Because when you are truly living in love, when you know that there is someone who thinks the world of you and believes in you then it truly feels like you're flying.  Now replace the word love with holiness and you will see that there is not much difference.  Love and holiness are synonymous.  You cannot have one without the other.

Since making this connection, since learning that everything that God does is an act of love, I have had an even deeper understanding of his love.  Sometimes it might seem like all I talk about is love but because I love God I follow his lawes and because he loves me, he calls me deeper into a life of holiness.  His laws are protective and though they may seem confining they are freeing in a profound way.  Only those who dedicate themselves to his love and his laws can truly understand what that freedom is like.

Digging Deeper: For more on God's law see the book of Leviticus.  For more on God's love see the Gospel of John as well as his letters (1st, 2nd and 3rd John)

The inspiration for this entry can be found in the comments of the last entry as well as my response which can be found in the Digging Deeper section of the last entry.

Challenge: Do a word study on the word Holy.  Learn what it means and how it's used in the Bible.  Ask God for a revelation of his love as you study his holiness.  As you read and study look for how his holiness is an expression of his love.