Common Grounds - God is love

“In reality hell is not such an intention of God as it is an invention of man. God is love and people are precious. Authentic truth is not so much taught or learned as it is remembered. Somewhere in your preincarnate consciousness you were loved absolutely because you were. Loved absolutely, and in reality, you still are! Remember who you are!” – Bishop Carlton Pearson, Author, Speaker, Spiritual Leader, and Recording Artist.


Perfect love. Absolute love. I think of the love of a mother for her unborn child. I recall the preparations for my firstborn: the enormous prenatal vitamins, the repeated trips to the doctors, the shopping for whatever they told me I needed in What to Expect When You Are Expecting. Some mothers even read stories and “talk” to the unborn child growing in their womb. Friends and family host baby showers - showers of happiness and love.

God loved us before we were born. “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:13-14). His love endures.

Do you know what it is like to be loved so completely? Not for what you have done or even what you will become but simply for being. For who you are. “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called Children of God!” (1 John 3:1).

God created an entire world for us. That is God’s love for us. “I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers; the moon and the stars which you have set in place.” (Psalm 8:3). All the magnificence that we see each day - and sometimes overlook - he made out of love for us. Start with the garden and all its beauty, majesty and bounty. Adam and Eve lived beside God. They spoke with him, and they spent time daily with him, as children of God. I believe that is how God intended it to be.

Adam and Eve were tempted and fell from God. It was not His intention. It was our invention. We make mistakes. Yet, through His love for us, He never gives up. His mercy is great. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16). He is mighty to save.

I love to watch my children sleep. It is such a great blessing to stop in their rooms before I go to bed each night and look at their sweet faces. In their slumber, all the craziness of the day disappears. You forget the fights over bath time and the whining about eating vegetables and the tears and the bickering. They are transformed, like little angels

Every day I tell my kids that I love them. They are nearby and still young enough that I can smother them with hugs and kisses. The time may come for squirming or protest, but until then we snuggle and have our special bedtime tradition. After we recap the day and share our hopes for tomorrow, we pause to express our absolute love. Many of you remember the book Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. It tells the story of a boy growing up and all the havoc he wreaks in his lifetime. More important, it sings of the enduring love of his mother. A love that overcomes all mischief and mistakes. Each night, Charlie and I sing the refrain from the book: “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.”

God loves us like that too. He is near. We may not feel His hugs and kisses or notice Him rocking us to sleep each night, yet His love is unfailing. He delights in hearing our prayers each night as we recap the day and share our hopes for tomorrow. Through our sins and our flaws, God’s love endures. “Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed (by our sin), for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is God’s faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22 emphasis added).

Reconnect with God’s love. Take time this week. Pause from your daily routine to reflect on God’s love for you. Allow yourself to reconnect with the authentic truth of His absolute love for you. As Max Lucado encourages us in A Love Worth Giving, “the secret to loving is living loved.”

“May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love.” (Ephesians 3:17 NLT).

Common Grounds - Heaven is Overrated

"Heaven is totally overrated. It seems boring. Clouds, listening to people play the harp. It should be somewhere you can’t wait to go, like a luxury hotel. Maybe blue skies and soft music were enough to keep people in line in the 17th century, but Heaven has to step it up a bit. They’re basically getting by because they only have to be better than Hell." – Joel Stein, Columnist for the Los Angeles Times

Does God need a new publicist? If he wants to attract the multitudes to the wonders of heaven, he might need a new ad agency. Modern man is bombarded with messages 24/7: glitzy infomercials, slick ad campaigns, spin doctors perfecting their messages. The creative teams employ vibrant colors and bold graphics to grab our attention and inspire us to act. We buy their products or sign up for their services. How can God inspire us without visual images?

The Bible offers few first hand testimonials to the wonders of heaven. "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him." (1 Corinthians 6:9). The poetry of the psalmists hints at the glory that awaits the faithful. If we Google the word "heaven," we won’t find a polished website detailing the accommodations and amenities. We are left to imagine the untold blessings.

Very little is left to the imagination in our society. Last week we discovered a new TV station amid the 1200 in our cable line-up. Daylong, it offers explanations of "how things are done," revealing the engineering marvels of skyscrapers, the formation of lab-made precious gems, and the culinary mystery of how they get the cream filing in the Hostess Twinkie. As a kid, I was hooked by the rare glimpse Mr. Rogers offered of crayons speeding through the Crayola factory. It was an awesome sight to see the fabrication of something so beloved. But like a magician revealing his secrets, without the mystery something essential is lost.

"We live by faith, not by sight."(2 Corinthians 5:7) Our daily walk with the Lord is built on love and belief and trust. "God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him." (Acts 17:27) The old images of clouds and harps are designed to leave us wanting. Heaven defies a typical description.

There is a song that my family loves to hear. It’s not as eloquent as Psalm 118:24, but SpongeBob Squarepants drives the point home in his song, "The Best Day Ever." Nothing extraordinary occurs in the song: no new job, no lottery winnings, no major life events. Our best day is the day of opportunities that God blesses us with each morning. A great day is special in what it lacks: no worries for the future and no sorrows over the past. It is a day lived fully in the present.

The full promise of heaven is dwelling in the presence of God. There, we will live like God, fully in the eternal present. Living in the moment, we will be without fear or anxiety of the future or regrets of the past. In heaven, God’s compassion and mercy abound. "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain." (Revelation 21:4)
I don’t know if heaven is an all-inclusive luxury hotel with round-the-clock spa treatments or buffet feasts of gourmet delicacies. Yet, in Revelation 7:16 we discover that, "never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat." The heavens are a storehouse of God’s bounty. The pure of heart will receive blessings from the Lord, for"no good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless." (Psalm 84:11)

Heaven may be God’s best kept secret. In the words of the MercyMe song, "I Can Only Imagine."