I have traveled in about 48 states of the US and over 40 countries of the world and one of the most frustrating parts of my various adventures I have taken is when I have a map that is either incomplete or down right wrong. Sometimes I think I wish we would go back to paper maps! Remember when you would go to a gas station and buy one? That was before cell phones in a galaxy far, far away. In Charlotte, NC where we now have lived for over two years, the maps are often wrong or incomplete even through I have a 2018 vehicle. There are so many new roads that the electronic maps can’t keep up. In fact, the highway that is a beltway around the city doesn’t show the shortest routes to many northern destinations because it shows the Hi-Way as being incomplete, which it’s not. What I have experienced is that the maps on your car are often 4-5 years behind your cell phone map.

If you haven’t read the first part of this subject on God’s “Unfailing Love”, please do so as it will make more sense starting from the beginning. We are dealing with the “Myth” of God having “Unconditional” love rather than “Unfailing Love“. As I already stated, the concept of God having and extending unconditional love to humanity is a creation of the 20th century and it is found nowhere in the Bible.

I have traveled a considerable amount over my lifetime and I have learned a very important lesson when it comes to packing my suitcases. If you pack a suitcase too full you may find it in pieces…..leaving you few options. You can put a special strap around it and hope the TSA inspectors put it back on correctly which, from my experience, is highly unlikely.  The second option is to unzip the “expansion” portion of your suitcase, which many people don’t use or realize they have. The problem with this technique is now your suitcase is overweight and you’re going to pay through the nose for the extra pounds and the baggage handlers will not g be kind to your bag. Here is my simple advice. Pack the suitcase for the designed volume and no more.

In this world most things are anything but reliable. Whether we look at the stock market or the price of gas, it seems everything is in flux and this can cause great anxiety in most of us. Whether it’s a product or a relationship it seems everything and everybody is beyond the value of our personal trust. But what if we could discover something that was so reliable that each person, regardless of the station in life they find themselves, or the country they live in, could find that something or someone to give ourselves over to 100%?  Wouldn’t we grab the chance of such fulfillment, regardless of the cost? I believe there is is only one thing, or one person in the universe, that is worthy of that kind of trust.

“Perspective”….it makes all the difference in the world!

Many of us live from our “Old Memories” rather than from the “Precepts” of God’s word.  Consequently, we live as “Slaves” of our past rather than in the freedom that God’s word was meant to birth in us.

Have you ever noticed how we seem as a culture to have no brakes on our mouths?

Not too many years ago, we debated issues and ideas. Now we slam anyone’s character when they don’t agree with everything we think is important. Instead of addressing the idea or topic, we think the only way to win an argument is to make the person we are talking about appear small or insignificant.

I started writing this topic on “Discovering God as a Lover” in two previous articles, which some have found to be either hard to grasp or accept, and so I wanted to continue the topic. So much of people’s Christian faith is anchored in the notion that knowing facts about God is all that is required to have a satisfying Christian experience. From a Biblical position, this is the farthest thing from the truth.

We first talked about the scripture from 1 John 4:7-8 which identifies God’s very nature. God’s nature is defined as love, and unfortunately that word in the english usage has so many different meanings today. We use the same word to say, “I love steak” or “I love tacos”. With the same word we say,”I love my dog” and “I love my kids”.

Do you remember the first crush you had as a little kid? My four year old grandson has a crush on a little girl in his preschool class. It is a time in our lives when we are captivated by beauty. For a boy of four, it is something that stirs this little guys heart that causes him to want to please the one of his affection. Granted, this first love experience may not happen at four, but we are wired for love, after all. Are we not made in the image of God? We still retain certain aspects of the nature God which he designed Adam with. We are made just like Him having the aspects of the nature of “Love” like Himself, though marred.

Remember when you were a kid and you discovered you could drag you feet along the carpet and shock someone with a spark of electricity? I do. In fact, it was my favorite thing to do in the school library. I would get a really good charge happening and then walk up to an unexpected person from behind and touch their ear. Sometimes the spark was so big that I only got within a few inches and “Pow”, the spark would fly. The victim I did the prank to would scream so loudly they would get in trouble with the librarian which made the prank so much better. ( this was my BC days – before Christ)