by REVEREND MERIDYTH ROBERTSON
Love changes everything!
It changes our hearts and causes us to do things for others that we would never have done before.
If you are married, are you the same person that you were when you got married?
Think of something that has changed about your spouse?
Is there anything that has changed about you?
Love has a way of reshaping us and redefining our priorities and our motives. It transforms our actions and ultimately it changes our lives.
God’s love sets the bar by which all other loves are defined because God’s love is unconditional.
We were created to be in a relationship with God but because of sin we have fallen short of our end of the bargain and are no longer able to keep up our part of the relationship.
But the good news is that a way has been made to repair that relationship once again. Love changes everything!
Think about a relationship in your life right now which is strained.
Maybe it’s with a spouse, a child or another family member, a friend or someone at work.
You know how difficult it is to forgive that person if they’ve hurt you; you also know how difficult it is to ask to be forgiven if you’re the one who’s done the damage.
But how often are you willing to give in even when the other person is the one in the wrong, and lay yourself on the line so that your relationship can be repaired?
That is not easy!
But that’s exactly what God did.
God saw the big picture.
God knew that we could never make our way back to where we started. God knew that you and I, left to our own efforts, would only continue to try but fail to come back into the relationship that God created us to be a part of.
And so God chose to take the initiative.
And even though He wasn’t the one in the wrong, God chose to make the relationship whole again by doing something which is un-imaginable: God gave His son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins – for the sins of the world.
God’s love changed everything.
In Romans 5:1-5 Paul says, rejoice in your suffering!
Not only rejoice during your suffering but rejoice in the fact that you do suffer, because suffering produces perseverance; and when we learn to persevere then we can glean the lessons that our suffering can teach us.
How many times have you wanted to escape a trial rather than live through it?
I don’t think any of us enjoy suffering.
But when we learn to persevere, we always come out on the other side better people than we went in.
Perseverance produces character.
It makes us better people and as our character improves so does our ability to have hope; to see the hand of God in the most difficult challenges of our lives and to be able to come out of them un-scathed. Character produces hope and hope will not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to us.
Have you experienced God’s love?
Does it change everything in life?
Does it transform your relationships?
Does it mold your speech?
The love of God has been poured out for you and for me and all we need to do is open ourselves to allow it to fill us.
The love of God has changed everything, for good.
The desire of God’s heart is that you will allow it to change you!
Rev. Meridyth Robertson
First Presbyterian Church
