-Your Love is Strong-

"Your Love is Strong"

The implications of these four simple words are astounding! Each word only one syllable and each word on its own a toddler can understand. Yet when put into a statment like this we can find incredible revelation. That is what happened to me on my drive home a few days ago. I was listening to KLRC as I normally do on my drive home and I heard a familiar song by an artist I can't remembers name, but I can tell you what the Chorus said...Your Love is Strong. I am sure I have heard this song before and have never thought twice about it. But God would use these four words to bring about peace, comfort, confirmation, grace, fufillment to my heart and soul...and tears to my eyes!



Now your probably thinking...whos love is strong? That's the most important question you can ask! Who's? It's that very question that so many seek to find the answer to! There are hundreds of religions in the world today...but only one based on love. Only one based on saving grace. You won't find it in one of the many gods of hinduism, or in the agnostic answers by buddha, take a harder look and muslims don't even have the answer to our brokeness caused by sin.



Acts 4:12 "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."

Christ's Love is Strong! If people could understand the implications of this short sentence I believe lives would be radically changed. There is hunger, especially in this day in age, for a love that is strong. With divorce rates as high as they are and the majority of the U.S.'s population sharing in two Christmas'...it is no suprise why we starve for it. Pastor Tim is right when he talks about satans work in destroying the homes. In high school most of my friends came from broken homes, same as I did. I grew up seeing the need for a love that was strong. I grew up understandting the brokeness that comes from the devestation when our conditional love fails us and destroys our homes. But the hurt spills over into all our relationships.

Thats why those four words mean so much...because it is so refreshing to know that in the midst of our brokeness and hurt there is a love that is strong enough to see us through. A love strong enough to endure and carry our sins and short comings. A love strong enough to be obdient to death. A love strong enough to over come the grave. A love strong to accept us as we are...all are uglyness, brokeness and hurts. A love strong enough to out last generations, centuries, milleniums, and still have enough over running to fill us up for years to come! This is what Christ love does, is, and means to us. It is our comfort and peace in trying times such as now. It is our unchanging foundation in an ever shifting world caught up in the "latest and greatest" things. It is our hope for not only a better more fufilling life now but for an eternal life that is most assuredly coming!

We can trust this great, strong love! It has helped millions of christians, over the years, face persecution and even death for the cause of Christ. It has changed the hardest of hearts. It took Paul from a person who persecuted the church and its efforts of sharing the good news of Christ, to dying for that same cause. It inspired John Newton, a former slave trader, to pen the words for "Amazing Grace". This Love is Strong. It reaches over oceans and is not contained by time as it continues to change lives today.

Many of you who will read this already know most of my testimony. I will spare you the many details of the broken, lost soul I was. But I will say that it was by His love alone that I am here today! His Love not only paid for my sins so that I can have eternal life with Him...it also gives me strength everyday to continue to live for Him. It provides me with mercy and grace when I screw up, as I often do. It provides me with perspective as I learn to love my family and friends more and more then I ever had. It teaches me the important things of life. The value of real things that matter like relationships, service, and investing in a cause and purpose greater then myself. His Love heals my brokeness, heals my familys brokeness, and restores that which was lost.

Jesus Christs Love is far more and has done far more then I can express. I am so blessed to see His Love continue to shape and change lives all around me. Lives that I would never expect or feared weren't changeable. God has reached down and has touched so many I know in such powerful ways. I also love how His love is sculpting our church! I am blessed to be apart of an awesome church that is fully reliant on Gods love and guidance! Christs love still continues to amaze me...it'll causes me to dance in the most un-likely places, sing at the top of my lungs, cry like a baby, raise my hands to praise. But most importantly it causes me to fall more and more in love with my Savior and Creator! I want to live every single one of my days as an expression of love and gratitude and praise for His love that has changed me! His unconditional, everlasting, perfect Love.

"Your Love is Strong." I hope those words have a more profound meaning now. I hope you know that you are cherished and deeply loved by an awesome God. It doesn't matter where you come from, what you did, or where your at now. His love is strong enough to save you, to change you, to fufill you. Its the only thing you'll ever need. I hope that the next time your feeling hurt, lonely, angery, frustrated, hopeless, lost, broken, or depressed...you will allow Him to embrace you with His spirit. That you will listen closely as He tells you Himself....

"My Love is Strong!"

Thanks for reading!

-Terry-