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I bet you’ve heard “God is Love” a thousand times.

Whether you’ve heard it before or not, it’s true.

Love is his character.

Love is his heartbeat.

Love is his passion.

But not just any love. Not just mushy gushy love. Not just love like we love.

Not just love like I love ranch dressing.

Perfect love.

Healing love.

Unconditional love.

Love without condition. It’s what “unconditional love” means. Love without condition. Love without bounds. Love that breaks down walls. Love that mends broken hearts. Love that is BLIND.

Love without strings.

His love doesn’t care how tall you are, how thin you are, how young or old or good looking you are.

God isn’t looking for a blonde or brunette or the quarterback or the straight-A kid.

God wants YOU, just the way YOU are.

God loves the ORIGINAL you. The “before sin” you. The you that HE created.

Okay, so what’s the catch?

It’s easy: LOVE HIM BACK.

From there on, it’s a relationship.

There will be potholes you run into along the way. You’ll mess up daily. You’ll stub your toe and scrape your knees, you’ll say the wrong thing and make big mistakes, but the fact that God IS LOVE…

…will never change!

He’ll be there to guide you safely back when you stray one way or the other.

Gigi wrote a blog recently about how LOVE IS MESSY. Check out, “Love, Vomit, and the Cheese Wagon” … but here’s some highlights from it:

In Scott Wilcher’s book The Orphaned Generation, he compared Jesus to a life guard who dove into a sewer to rescue us. Jesus left heaven, dove head first into a vile sewer, to rescue me from drowning in my own nasty mess.

To rescue you.

That’s some love. He didn’t ask us to get out of the sewer and shower off first. He came after us, while we were still covered in stink. And still does….

“Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13 (shoot- read the whole chapter- it’s all about love.)

Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence. This is the most important, the first on any list, but there is a second to set alongside it: Love others as well as you love yourself.” Matthew 22: 37-39

“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son.” John 3:16

We are called to love each other(and not just when we are fresh out of a bath).

I am so thankful that Jesus loved me so much that he left heaven for me- even though I am a mess.

Okay, back to what I was saying…

God = love.

Sounds complex, but it’s simple.

God loves you.

Really.

A whole lot.

Got questions? Email me: iamsteveaustin@me.com

Do you have a prayer request?

We would love to hear from you!