Thursday, March 12, 2009

When Jesus died, trees were green.

*I've learned that love is about choice. It is the ultimate act of free will, and ultimately the reason God gave us free will. Love without choice isn't love at all. Love based on feelings and emotions is not love. Love can have feelings and emotions, yes. But if that is all, then your love is conditional. I need to fall in love with Christ again. I've been so caught up with my questions and my answers that I've forgotten my passion. I've forgotten my first love. I have to CHOSE to love Jesus. Loving him because he deserves it just means I'm loving him out of duty, not choice. While he does deserve every ounce of my love, it has to be the ultimate act of free will to be genuine love. Until I chose to love God, I will never learn to love others. 

*I'm reading a book called When God Writes Your Love Story (hence the inpiration to renew my love), and in it the reader was encouraged to read Luke 23-24, in an attempt to rediscover how much we are loved by God. In it, though, I found an interesting passage as Jesus is walking to the place he's going to be crucified... it's Luke 23:27-31... 

"A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. Jesus turned and said to them, 'Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, "Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!." Then "they will say to the mountains, 'Fall on us!' and they will say to the hills, 'Cover us!' " For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?' "

Okay. wow. That last part? "If men do these things (ie crucify the innocent) when the tree is green (ie times are good), what will happen when it is dry (ie times are bad)?" More and more, we're approaching those "dry" times. Where innocent little girls are sold in sex slavery and  innocent preachers in Maryville, IL get shot for seemingly no reason. hmm.