I love you Grandpa

Recently, Cathy and I were spending a Saturday up north with our oldest son Jonathan, his wife, and our grandson Emmett who is around two and one half years old. They hadn’t been able to come to our family gathering at Christmas due to a snow storm and we hadn’t seen them in a few months, so we made the trek.

Because we don’t see them as often as we do our other children and grandchildren, our concern was whether or not Emmett would remember who we are. But, after a short time, he was one the floor playing monster trucks with me. In fact, for about the first five minutes or so all he seemed to say to me was “monster truck” no matter what questions I asked of him.

From the floor we moved our monster truck activities to the couch. At one point he placed his head on mine and said; “I love you grandpa”. My heart leapt at the words which were confirmed by Cathy. He hadn’t forgotten who we were and more importantly, he expressed some ‘unmerited’ love to a man who had a place in his life.

I can only imagine how much our words of love mean to our loved ones who don’t always hear them from us.

But what is love? We love: our pets, cars, jobs, kids, friends, spouses, NFL, NHL.

The dictionary says that it is:

• A profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
• A feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection.
• Sexual passion or desire.
• A person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart.
• Used in direct address as a term of endearment, affection, or the like

Yet the Bible tells us a different definition for love. It describes from cover to cover a love from God that is so unique, so unusual to what we as humans have experienced that everything else pales in comparison!

The apostle John tries to describe this love from God:

“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10 NKJV)

John, in his attempt to describe love, starts off by explaining what it is NOT: “This is love…STOP!”

John is saying that this love is: So unique, so big, so special, so different than anything that they had experienced that there is NO COMPARISON to human love!

God’s love is so much greater than ANYTHING we know to be “love”. So much so that John needed to STOP mid-sentence to make sure that the reader doesn’t get too far ahead of where John was going in his definition of “love”.

He says it is NOT that we love God. That is NOT love! In other words John is actually saying that we don’t (really) love God the same way He loves us.

Our love has reasons and motives behind it. We love so that we can get something, or so we can benefit from what we do.

John is saying; THIS IS LOVE: “That He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” “propitiation” = Atonement, to atone for; make amends”

What that means is He atoned for; made amends, paid for our sins. And because our debt was transferred to Jesus, we can have a clean slate when we come to receive Him as our Lord and Savior!

Are you tired of looking for love in all the wrong places? Have you tried to clean up your life with no success? Are you tired of trying to do it your way? Call 1-888-NEED –HIM; someone is waiting to talk with you.