Standing Firm in Faith for a “Whole” Life: Part 2–Love

We’re continuing our blog journey through the book inSPIRE®–Faith for a “Whole” Life – (coming soon). Chapter two begins with an invitation to find our footing in love.

Love is Powerful

Love is powerful. We celebrate it every year on February 14^th. We’re moved when we see love in action. We even seek out second-hand and fictional narratives of enduring love in theatres and on our streaming devices.

By the year 2017, ten years after the release of the movie Titanic, an estimated 211 million adult hearts soared and crashed with each wave of passion and injustice as Jack and Rose loved and lost on screens everywhere. Viewers recognized love’s ultimate sacrifice as Jack raised Rose onto a floating board and remained in the water beside her, until hypothermia ended his life. Heart-sick viewers felt the stone-cold fingers of the seas as Jack slid into its depths.

Romantics and cynics alike wanted love to win. Why?

A Love Story

We belong in a love story. A true story that began a long, long time ago.

Once upon a time, in the very beginning of everything, in the first chapter of the Bible, we’re presented with the most incredible recounting of the world being created as God speaks everything we know into existence. In Genesis 2, the spotlight moves to humanity, as God focuses on the primary object of his affection. Instead of only speaking humanity into existence, as God did with plants and animals and other living things, God created us in his own image and breathed life into the first human’s lungs!

If we were watching this on the big screen, this would be the climactic moment in the movie when the music changes, escalates, and we all cheer.

Surely we can see that we weren’t made for a distant relationship with God but one that is close-up and personal. God leaned in close enough to share his very own breath with us in the creation narrative.

Our starting place is one of intimacy. No wonder our hearts long to experience love. We were formed in a love story. Money, sex, and power are poor substitutes for love and intimacy. But money, sex, and power grabbed the attention of ancient peoples and still do in our culture today. People got lost in the misuse and abuse of God’s good gifts, so he sent his Son, Jesus, to the world to save it.

True Love

The Bible tells us that:

God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ. John 1:17 (NLT)

God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. 1 John 4:9-10 (NLT)

That was true love.

When humanity turned and returned to many gods, committing abhorrent sin against one another, and refrained from loving God with their heart, soul, and strength, he still reached out—again, and again, and again—ultimately through the incarnate Jesus.

If the concept of accepting God’s gift of relationship is new for you, perhaps this is your moment to turn to God and enter the love story. If you have previously turned to God in faith but have lost your way, like the ancient peoples, you can return to God and re-enter the love story. He is still calling.

Every next breath we take is a tangible gift and a brand-new opportunity to live as a new creation in Christ.