Loved Before Time

“So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him,
because Jesus was going to pass that way.” — Luke 19:4

Photo by Larry Koester

God’s love for us goes before the moment we realise the beauty of it. Like how He loves Zacchaeus, the Sycamore tree has already been there all along awaiting for Zachaeus’
“God moment”.

 

Timely

Time is a commodity we often times neglect. 

We thoughtlessly waste it when…

we fail to make time for our families, conveniently;
we fail to make time for the people whom we claimed we love and value, indifferently;
we fail to make time for people in need especially those around us, intentionally;
we fail to make time for ourselves, selflessly; and worse…
we fail to make time for the LORD who gave His all for us, nonchalantly. 

When we fail to make time, we fail to love; for love is spelled, T-I-M-E.

“Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.
    Remind me that my days are numbered—
    how fleeting my life is.
 You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand.
    My entire lifetime is just a moment to you;
    at best, each of us is but a breath.”
Psalm 39:4-5

Make the most of your time by making time. 

 

Freed by Grace

And so the Lord says,
    “These people say they are mine.
They honor me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me.
And their worship of me
    is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote.
Isaiah 29:13

Legalistic people should stay in God’s church. 
For although they don’t own the church, though they behave as if they do,
it’s a hospital for dying sinners not a museum for living saints.

 

Live!

Still, it’s what GOD had in mind all along, to crush him with pain.

The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin

so that he’d see life come from it—life, life, and more life.

And GOD’s plan will deeply prosper through him.

Isaiah 53:10 The Message

No matter who you are, no matter where you come from, no matter what you’ve done,

GOD bled his heart out for you because He loves you.

And He wants you to live.

 

Strive Thriving

The feeling of being pushed on the brink of losing yourself and
just when you were about to grope your way out of the darkness
to start gasping for air to breathe afresh survival,
a scheming reality choked you.
That you are surrounded yet alone;
Needed but needing;
Moving but drowning;
Living yet dying. 
Hopelessly hopeful.
Quitting…

…and with a fervid desire to feed the pain for mundane gain, you succumb to giving up. 
Yet all of a sudden, the churning within calms as the Comforter comes, saying… 

“Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you.
I’ve called your name.
You’re mine.

When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you.
 
When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down…

Because I am God, your personal God,…your Savior. 
.
…That’s how much you mean to me!
 
That’s how much I love you!“

— GOD (Isaiah 43:1-4, The Message)

Strive thriving in living and loving HIM.
May God’s unfailing love always be your comfort.

 

Empty-hearted

One of the saddest parts of life is when we think that we have plenty when in fact, we are empty.

It is when we realized that more than being empty-handed, we are empty-hearted.

“Empty-hearted” that implies two resounding things:

First, it echoes the rhetorical classic,
“If a tree falls in the desert, and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?”
Love without an object of love negates love itself.

Second, it’s a prequel to being brokenhearted.
A feeling of being pushed away; a constant subtle rejection that seems to never get tired of
breaking broken hearts. 

Negated love. Neglected love. 

Yet in this rock bottom quagmire, emptiness makes quintessential things clearer to see — that we are broken to be made whole again by the only One who can complete us and that the meaning of life that each one of us are striving to find can only be found in the One who created it. 

May our hearts cling on to this truthful statement made by the psalmist…
“If your heart is broken, you’ll find God right there…” 

God is love. He loves.

 

He Started It

Man is not made godly because he chose to love God.

Man can be made godly because God loved him first.