Pictures of Crazy Love

By Overseer Christopher J. Harris
This week's topic: God's Love

I guess it is true that love will make you do some crazy things. Imagine the reach of God’s love. He asks us to love our enemies (Matt. 5: 44). He then lives that out in his life. A woman who had ‘many’ sins experienced Christ’s love (Luke 7:47). He knew Peter would deny him three times, but Peter was still chosen as one of the three closest to Jesus. Jesus was God and possesses authority, but because of love, stooped and washed his disciples’ feet (John 13). All of these are examples of how crazy God’s love is. His love is, by definition, against the grain, but it’s radical, unconventional and revolutionary. He even invites us to participate in this same extravagant love. There’s another great display of God’s love and how unconventional it is.

In the Old Testament book of Hosea, God instructs the Prophet Hosea to marry a woman who was better known as a prostitute. It says, “When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, take to yourself a wife and children of unfaithfulness.” (Hosea 1:2, NIV)

Why in the world would God tell a Man of God to do something like this? He answers it in the same verse. He wanted Hosea to become a living example of God’s love. The verse says, “Because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord.” In other words, because other people have experienced my love and walked away from it, I need them to see someone who willingly loves someone who doesn’t want to be loved, doesn’t know how to be loved, and may even take advantage of that love. Hosea, can you do that?

Wow, this is crazy love to the extreme. What’s even more amazing about this is that we are challenged to love in this same kind of radical way. The truth is that ONLY those who experience God’s love and forgiveness even understand the depth of this. It’s perfect love, without conditions.

As we read further into Hosea, Gomer gets tired of her life with Hosea and starts to live outside of the boundaries of her marriage and ends up pregnant…three different times! And guest what God tells Hosea? Go get her! Go find her, clean her up, take her back in, and love her with crazy love! God is telling Hosea what Paul told the Corinthians, “Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” (1 Cor. 13: 7, KJV). God sets a standard and challenge for us. Be LIVING EXAMPLES of my Crazy Love. Live it out and work it out – daily!

As a way to accept this challenge, here are some questions to challenge you to love in a crazy way.

1. Is your love absolutely unconditional?

2. Do you personalize your love?

3. Do you rely on your feelings or on godly obedience to love?

4. Are you challenged to love or do you dismiss loving others?

Today, let’s rise to the challenge of being those LIVING EXAMPLES of God’s crazy love. It looks, sounds, and feels crazy. But so is God’s love to us.

Scripture of the Day: “Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” - 1 Cor. 13:7 (KJV)