LOVE ROMANCES # 1 PM – Sunday night preach 2Feb14 
ARE YOU IN LOVE?
MY STORY – When Chris and I first dated in (dare I say it) Year 11 at school, I can remember four hour long phone calls. Whatever did we speak about? I could never manage it now!
Love has no beginning. God is love. In the beginning God chose to create a love creature. You. The act of a father was to bring children into the world. Children upon whom He can lavish His love, and if they choose, to love Him back.
Love is, at the same time, the most wonderful life giving experience and also the most painful experience. Love is painful when it’s lost or when it’s not returned. If love was unimportant then it would not be worth having. Love is essential to every person. A life without love is unthinkable! Love demands all of you, or else you are short changed! You have been ripped off if you choose a love that only shares part of you.
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
Love seeks to give it’s all.
John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
Isaac Watts wrote a hymn in 1707, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.
- When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride. - Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood. - See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown? - Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
Love demands my all. Love, if it is true love, is incomplete if I only give part of me.
When your heart is ruined by love, you are changed and you are better for it.
Your joy is to spend time with the one you love. Just being together feels replenishing. You focus is another, your focus is not self anymore. Just imagine what this looks like between you and Jesus.
When you’re in love you want to be with the one you love. Love romances, it says the kindest words, it makes the time to be there, it does the things that show the love in action. Can you love Jesus when you can’t see Him?
How do you love someone you cannot see? People do it all the time. Simple, as the wife of a serviceman writes to her husband who is away on assignment.
“Letters that were written during his time at Basic Training when we had no choice but to communicate through written word. They are beautiful and heartfelt, filled with love and longing. Our letters to each other during that time expressed our feelings for each other…feelings that many times went unspoken. Sometimes they were apologies for past mistakes, or promises for the future. I remember daily taking time to sit and write him a letter, filled with what the kids were doing and how things were at home, but also to tell him that I loved him, missed him and appreciated him. When writing a letter, the sender isn’t talking directly to the recipient and does not face immediate response to what they have said. While many times I want the quick response to a question or comment, there are times when I want to express my thoughts or feelings without worrying how the other person will respond.”
Are you in love?
Are you in love with Jesus?
WHAT NOW?
Love Romances. Love demands that time is spent with the one of our affection.
Would you spend a few precious moments with Jesus every day?
Ps 18:1-2 (MESS)
1-2 I love you, God—
you make me strong.
God is bedrock under my feet,
the castle in which I live,
my rescuing knight.
My God—the high crag
where I run for dear life,
hiding behind the boulders,
safe in the granite hideout.
Ps 36:5-9 (MESS)
God’s love is meteoric,
his loyalty astronomic,
His purpose titanic,
his verdicts oceanic.
Yet in his largeness
nothing gets lost;
Not a man, not a mouse,
slips through the cracks.
7-9 How exquisite your love, O God!
How eager we are to run under your wings,
To eat our fill at the banquet you spread
as you fill our tankards with Eden spring water.
You’re a fountain of cascading light,
and you open our eyes to light.
If you’re deeply in love with Jesus, you will delight to spend time with Him reading His word and talking to Him. If the feelings aren’t there for Him; meditate on the cross, think deeply on what a happened at the cross and how it affects you.
Either open your day or close your day (or both) with time alone with God.
Ps 5:3 In the morning You hear my voice, O Lord; in the morning I prepare [a prayer, a sacrifice] for You and watch and wait [for You to speak to my heart].
Love the one you’re with!
craigmanderson 
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