What i've learned: Our responsibility to love

Right now, I am baking an angel bundt cake.

I love this, because I love angel cake, I'm really excited about the orange glaze I made for it, and I stinkin love the word "bundt". So basically, this is the best thing ever.

Also, I just told my sister a story about a daddy who loved his little girl so much that he gave all his money to a man so he could rescue her from a candy shop. Oh yes, my gospel story was very sweet and cute. But I got to talk to my little sister about Jesus, which I love.

I, uh, want to talk about love tonight. Loving people, loving friends, really loving them. It's a big deal. You see, I know a boy who kind of lived in a fog once. He just kept going with life, not really sure about his passions, his purpose. Heck, he didn't know that he had a real, hard, living purpose. He just was moving along.

In the Bible, God makes a big deal about love. I mean, He sent His son to die for us BECAUSE of His love. And sometimes i'm not sure we really appreciate what that means. The Bible says we are called to love- that we will be known as believers in Christ through our love. That is not to be taken lightly at all.

This boy- he ended up getting really involved with a youth group. And at first he wasn't too into it- he believed in God, but he didn't understand the point of church, or really, what actually living for Christ meant. He couldn't move from being nominal to being an authentic Christian, and he didn't know why.

It's embarrassing sometimes, because we Christians are responsible for things like the Crusades, and some of our more uh.... "spirited" brothers are responsible for Gay hate rallies and such. And it's so terribly unbiblical! No wonder so many people think Christians are narrow minded hypocrites- the fact is that sometimes we are.

We were called to heal the world with real, crazy, authentic love.

Not hurt it with blind, dumb, and spiteful hatred.

When we miss the mark on this, we tear the Kingdom down instead of building it up.

But i'm not saying that we are all bad.

This boy began to get discouraged. He stopped going to church for awhile- he just didn't care. And then an amazing leader stepped into his life. This youth leader built this boy up, stuck through life with him, gave him a hope and vision for his future- showed him Christ's love. He brought him to faith, brought him to life. He let God work through him.

When we love, we get to be a part of God's mission to bring the world back to life. We see it in the small things- a kid's smile, a repaired relationship, emotional walls being broken down. We see it in the big things- huge movements where people are reborn and resurrected as a single body of believers, incredibly selfless acts done because of faith, relief brought to dark places all for love. This love that can heal the blind, this love that can resurrect the dead, the love that can heal my very soul- it must be shared. It was created to be shared- it is, in fact, not love if not shared.

It is not love if not shared.

Jeramy Wheeler is like my older brother now. I'm pretty much positive I will always have him in my life. It is because of him that i'm following Jesus today- really, it is. I wouldn't be who I am without him. And yeah, I have so many people who I can attribute to who I am today, but it is because Jeramy chose to love like Christ that my life was changed.

I don't know what to say guys, except.... we need to love, and we need to be radical about it. Don't let your fears or presuppositions keep you from reaching out with Christ's love to someone. No one will reject you- everyone wants love. I promise. I am an example of what love does- heck, we all are, because God created us, He loves us, and He wants us. Desperately. And we get to be a part of showing people that.

By the way, my orange-glaze-angel-bundt-cake is done. And it's stinkin delicious. MADE FROM SCRATCH PEEPS, made from scratch.....