Love

Love Letter Seven: The Book of Judges

God says, I never heal superficially. Many of My people wish I did and think I do. I don't. My plan is to change you from the inside out, to change your motives—why you do what you do—and to change your impact on people so that how you relate to others will make them thirsty for Me and will draw them to dependence on Me.

When you love Me above all else, what you do will bring Me pleasure because your motives, though never pure, will be holy. And when you love others with an authenticity and passion that draws them toward Me, you will feel a little of the pleasure I feel.

Only when people look deeply into themselves will they truly repent. My people in Judges never repented. They remained in love with their own sense of well-being, with no understanding that love, real love, the love that defines Me, involves suffering the loss of well-being for the sake of another.

That lack of understanding is epidemic, not only in culture but in churches today. And it is in you. You and everyone else are inclined to depend on Me for the good life of blessings and to mistake that dependence for love. You're more afraid of losing the good life than of losing (or never gaining) a close relationship with Me. You do not yet see that being with Me is your greatest blessing, no matter what else may be happening in your life.


(from 66 Love Letters: A Conversation with God that Invites You into His Story by Dr. Larry Crabb, ©2009.)