Redemption Pt. 4

Someone told me once that the more you fall in love with the Savior, the more the world doesn't make sense to you. I find myself victim to that idea. It doesn't make sense that we kill to get our way. It doesn't make sense to me that we can get so excited over a sports game but then we stand in church like we don't care. It doesn't make sense that we exploit women (and even men as a matter of fact!) in the media. It doesn't make sense that we could even endorse the exploitation of women through our choice of music we listen to. It doesn't make sense to me that we worship these big public figures who probably only care about themselves and their career. We all have our justifications around these things, but in the end, they're just lies blinding us from truth. Its a good thing there is grace or I myself would be screwed!

The world is such a fickle thing. Its not constant in the least bit, and that in it self doesn't make sense. I know this because at one moment I could be overjoyed at the beauty of the glory of God on this earth and then the next I could be deeply saddened by the ignorance of it. We weren't created to be so fragile, so fickle. We were born with an anchor, and that is God's love for us. So with that in mind, our ignorance, our humanity lacking the salvation of God, doesn't make sense.

And thats what I hope to be this semester and for the rest of my life. Someone who makes sense in the context of the solution to our broken soul. I want to make sense because I have the light of God shining within me. But I don't want to be the only thing that makes sense. I want the whole world to make sense. I want the world to be redeemed.

With this desire comes the greater responsibility and joy on my part. I seek to do so much for the redemption of this world. I want to find the church where there is no needy person amongst them, where they break bread together, where they truly and deeply love each other out of reverence for God. I want to live in another country with the least of these. I want to know how its like to live on 10 percent a day. I want to travel and do missions. I want to find God shine so bright amongst people like the stars shine in foreign country. I want to see Jesus through someone's eyes. And I want to mobilize a united effort for the redemption of our world in every region. I have big ambitions, but they mean nothing if I'm not even willing to do it to the person down the street from me.

So thats where I'm at this semester. Redeeming the world starting with James Madison University. So to whoever is reading this, I encourage you to do the same for wherever you're at now. Its time to close the gap between inactive believers and active unbelievers into the umbrella of God's love for us and the redemption that comes through the blood of Jesus Christ. 

The beauty of Christ cannot be contained in tall, brick sanctuary or stain glass windows. So lets stop pretending like it can be! The beauty of Christ shines in our hearts and we carry the fragrance of the knowledge of Him to a depraved world (2 Cor. 2:14). Redemption is in our hands to carry out in this world, for we are His church.

I don't know about you, but thats the most logical thing that has crossed my mind since I've started writing this post. It just makes sense. Thank God for something making sense in this world.

"In Him we have redemption through His blood,

the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the 

riches of God's grace that He lavished on us with

all wisdom and understanding . . ."

-Ephesians 1: 7-8

Redemption Pt. 3

Read Redemption Pt. 1 and Pt. 2 before you read this post


The comforting thing about the existence of evil in this world is that when it is the darkest, thats when you see the light shine the brightest. God works for our good and our good is for His glory. 
People can choose to bring about redemption in this world but totally leave God out of the picture. They would want to spread ideals such as peace, love, joy, but a peace, love, and joy outside of God. It is ultimately just a peace, joy, and love because . . . just because. And you know, thats fine! I applaud people like those because they are people who are so close to truth that they are able to really market that out to an unbelieving world. What I mean is, these people are just reaping the fruit of the victory of Christ without believing in Him. In an unbelieving world, the only thing that can appeal to a depraved humanity is reaping of this fruit without committing to a belief. These result is people keep doing good and ultimately that is what spreads until someone asks the question, what for? That is why I love these people. But sadly what I've come to find is, people who decide to spread these ideals and do good outside of God, don't reproduce anything. They just briefly cover up evil for a moment.
Its like the stars (and I don't mean to sound corny here). I was sitting on my roof the other night just wishing I could be living in a foreign country right now where the stars shine brighter. Well its not that the stars shine brighter in another country as much as it is our own artificial light blotting out the true light. Our man made light enshrouds the skies when deep down we long to see the real light. Thats what spreading these ideals outside of God does. They just cover up the truth with ephemeral man made ideals. While they are good to appeal to the masses, they are not truth. 
And the truth is God's redemption provides us with something eternal. God's redemption gives us the solution our soul longs for. God's redemption is the thing that lasts.
For example, Kurt Wyman's best friend, Bobby, could have decided to not respond at all to his friend's death. But instead, he decided that he was going to find the man who killed his best friend in jail and minister to him so that he might be a believer. You see, Bobby is giving that man something tangible! It would have been so hard and pointless for Bobby to go to the jail and talk to him about love because that discussion outside of God leads to a dead end. That fruit doesn't reproduce outside of God because it doesn't make sense why it should be reproduced. But a love that stems from God reproduces more love, joy reproduces joy, peace reproduces more peace, and thats how fruit should be!
I knew a person a while ago (whose name I will not mention) who was just burdened by the fact that he himself couldn't change anything in another person's life. Now I realize why. The victory we have in Christ is the line in which insufficiency meets grace. We were never meant to do this whole "change the world" on our own because us on our own is insufficient. But when we bring Christ into the picture our insufficient self meets the grace that tells us we are righteous and able.
So you see, plugging ourselves into God's redemptive work is the only logical solution for really changing this work.
Final post coming up next!

Redemption Pt. 2

Everybody keeps talking about the possibility of a zombie apocalypse in the future. They make jokes about who their zombie apocalypse team is gonna be, or where they would hide. People have gone so far enough as to even build zombie-proof shelters! Well guess what? People should open their eyes and see that the zombie apocalypse might have well already happened. Now before you ditch your computer and take shelter, let me explain.

You see, it is my idea that every single person knows that there is something wrong. There is something wrong deep inside of man. They can't watch a murder story on the 5 o' clock news and think that everything is just peachy. They know that there is something wrong and whether their too proud to admit it is a whole different story.

Here's whats wrong. We are a bloodthirsty people, much like zombies. We are a primitive, backwards, and bloodthirsty people feeding on the blood of others much like the truck driver and the car driver. Their desire was for blood to be shed and for them to drink from that. But fear not people! There is an antidote to this zombie apocalypse.

Here's the solution: Jesus Christ steps down from Heaven in His magnificence and gives His own blood so that a primitive people won't thirst anymore. His blood floods our inadequacy and exchanges it for righteousness. And there it is, our thirst is satisfied. But much like that scene from I Am Legend (A Will Smith movie about zombies. I highly suggest it!) where the zombies are scared of the light, we see the path of righteousness the Son has laid out for us, but its scary. So then, still stuck on our cancer of depravity, envelop the lie that our primitive ways of self-sufficiency are enough and turn the other way. We continue to shed the innocent blood of others seeking to be satisfied in our soul, but its never enough. 

And thats what ignorance and pride does to us. It makes us blind to the solution and therefore, keep buying into the problem.

But here is the big question of the day: how much blood should be shed for the ignorance of a primitive people?

I cry in my soul because I know that there was an obvious solution to the day that man decided to kill Kurt Wyman. And that was for that man to be shaken of his ignorance instead of seeking the blood of an innocent person. Though his ignorance shed the blood of another, there was a beautiful picture amongst that scene the day Kurt Wyman died. And that was this: Kurt was the solution. He was someone bearing the fragrance of Christ, or the knowledge of the glory of God. He was letting his light shine. But much like the zombie from I Am Legend, the man was scared. Through his fear of the light came his ignorance of Kurt trying to save his life, so he took Kurt's. 

Many people ask, why does God allow pain in this world? Well I feel like many Christian theologians, writers, preachers, etc. etc. have realized that God would reply with the right question, why do you allow pain in this world.

The beautiful thing about Kurt is that he was someone who plugged himself into the redemptive work of God on this earth. His life was not in vain.

In the next part I will talk about plugging into God's redemptive work as a church and discuss my plans to live that out this semester and for a lifetime.

Redemption Pt. 1

Here I am. Back at school, ready to begin another semester. You know, the cool thing about semesters at school is that every semester has a story of its own. For example, my fall semester was entirely different than my spring semester last year mainly because at the end of the year I wasn't the person who I was back in fall semester. I had changed mostly because I became heavily consumed and convicted by the Gospel of Christ and in turn, died to myself. So as I sit here pondering about what this semester's story might be, I am continually drawn back to the mission of Christ. 
Earlier today, I was taking the trash from the front of my house to the back of the house. As I was taking it out back I heard from a car passing by, "Get out of the (bad word) street you little (another bad word)!" The following thoughts whirling around my head after this man's daring statement was: was he referring to me (even though I wasn't on the street)? Another was this: Could something as little as a person on the street compel this man to act in a manner that would crush someone else's spirits?
Another road example: Me and my friend, Andrew, were driving down the highway when our annoying GPS tells us to take the next exit. I glance at him, he glances at me, and then like magic we somehow arrived at the conclusion: we needed to take the next exit. The only problem was there was this huge truck hogging up the right lane and when we turned on our blinker they decided to speed up. They were still a good distance behind us when we needed to switch over last moment. So we switched over to the right lane and the truck sped up more and then switch to the left lane. As we were taking the exit, the truck honked and the driver decided to give us a symbol of his admiration for us (and no, it was not a thumbs up but another finger). The following thoughts whirling around my head after this man's bold action was this: why did that man feel the need to express his anger with us? We didn't need to know that!
Now, it would not be right of me to assume that the truck driver and the person driving the car were not believers. They could have been believers and read every verse in the Bible, but skipped verses like Colossians 3:8 ("But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.") But despite them being believers or not, they are here to prove a point, and that is this: there is evil in the world. It is evil to not chose the action of building up one another in love in exchange for expressing anger. There is evil that exists out there.
To really drive the point home, I have one more story. I had the pleasure of working with a youth group from New York this summer who had suffered a tragic loss in their youth group. It was a youth worker and Deputy Sheriff by the name of Kurt Wyman. He was a man who was more concerned about the Gospel of Christ than his own life, and as a result his life was taken by a man with a gun in a domestic dispute. The worst part was, he was trying to save the man's life, in more ways than one.
There is evil in this world. There is a depreciation of life, ignorance of others, and hatred towards others that exists in this world. But then there is the evil that stares back at us when we look in the mirror. The evil of pride deprives us of the surpassing glory of being fully reliant on God. It deceives us to believe that we could do this whole "living" thing on our own.  Ha! That is the biggest lie since toe thumbs (toe thumbs: fact or fiction? Find it out for yourself)! 
I don't mean to be morbid through my acknowledgment of evil in this world. But I believe an acknowledgment of evil is necessary for the discernment of righteousness in this world. The acknowledgment of evil also makes our mission of Christ more clear in this world. In my next post I'll discuss the hope of redemption as well as how it ties into my hopes for this semester.

Sacred Love Pt. 3

"and to KNOW this love that surpasses KNOWLEDGE-

that you may be filled to the measure of all the

fullness of God."

-Ephesians 3:19

Know a love that surpasses knowledge? Have any of you been puzzled by this verse? How can you know a love that surpasses knowledge? It is because the knowing that is spoken of in this verse is an experiential knowledge in contrast to the knowledge of the brain.

The key to fighting earthly love is experiencing sacred love. 

Well how do we experience sacred love?

Misconception: KNOWING the love of God is an act of the brain. False. It is an act of the heart. This knowledge is an experiential knowledge so it is meant to be lived out in the heart. When people go about living out the love of God with brains, arguments, and logic they end up relying on what knowledge the world has given them about love and then they approach God with an earthly love. This is another example of blurring the lines between earthly and sacred love. We are not meant to rely on what culture teaches us about love. We are meant to rely on the love God has for us (1 John 4:16).

Well how do we experience the love of God on our hearts?

"And hope does not disappoint us,

because God has poured out His love

into our hearts by the Holy Spirit,

whom He has given us."

-Romans 5:5

Have you ever thought of love being something almost supernatural? Thats because it is. God pours out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. 

Think about it like this: In Ephesians 3:19, we see that the love of God is so much that we can't comprehend it because it surpasses our knowledge. And we know what love is because Jesus Christ laid down his life for us (1 John 3:16). This is the Gospel! Upon our belief of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). The Holy Sprit works on our hearts so we can experience the love of God rather than try to grasp it with our minds. This is how we know the love that surpasses knowledge.

Think about it in another way: In 1 John 3:1, it says that we know the love of God because we are called His children. Well in Romans 8:16, it says the Spirit testifies that we are God's children. Therefore, we know and experience the love of God because the Holy Spirit allows it. He allows us to comprehend the love that surpasses knowledge.

Therefore, love is the manifestation of the Spirit on the heart.

Now this whole time I've been talking about the heart, but I've been neglecting the relationship between the heart and the brain. There is a cause and effect relationship between the heart and the brain. Think about it: we like someone with our heart after our mind first decides to like that person. We use an object after our mind has first decided to buy it. The brain is the cause, the heart is the effect. God's love being poured into our hearts is a response of our mind's decision to believe in Christ. 

"The Spirit clearly says that in later times

some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving

spirits and things taught by demons."

-1 Timothy 4:1

Earthly love is a faithless love of pleasure and deceiving spirits. We are deceived and taught through our brain. Therefore, earthly love speaks to our brains while sacred love speaks to our hearts. Thats why in 2 Corinthians 4:4 it says the god of this age has blinded the MINDS of unbelievers. Now Satan is smart, even though a lot of us might think he's stupid. He uses earthly love to speak right to the cause so the effect doesn't happen.

Lets rewind back to the first post. Back to when earthly love was first introduced into the world. The moment when Eve was deceived by Satan. Her perception about the fruit was changed in that one moment and she embraced earthly love. A lot of fighting the battle between earthly and sacred love has to do with the manipulation of our perception. Let me give you an example.

"For everything God created is good,

and nothing is to be rejected 

if it is received with thanksgiving."

-1 Timothy 4:4

Everything God created is good and nothing should be rejected because since everything God created is good then it should be used to bring praise to Him. It depends on our perception.

Does anyone find it funny that Adam and Eve hid behind God's creation after they had sinned (Gen. 3:8)? The trees were created to bring praise to God, yet it was desecrated in that one moment because then Adam and Eve perceived it to be a good hiding spot. Everything God created is good and it is not to be rejected if we give praise to God through His creation. Our sinful perceptions granted to us by deceiving spirits is what keeps us from seeing God's manifestation of love through creation. It is earthly love speaking to our minds.

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind . . ."

-Romans 12:2

Lets renew our minds so earthly love can't speak to it anymore. Once we renew our minds, we will walk in sacred love (2 John 1:6) just as it was done in the beginning. Lets renew our love.

God's love is a sacrificial love. Therefore, God's love isn't so much of emotion but rather a love of action. He loved us so much that He GAVE His Son (John 3:16). So we are called to have a love of action.

Think about it: much about love is movement. That's why in 2 Corinthians 5:14 it says Christ's love COMPELS us. This is why we do missions, charity, evangelism, etc. etc.! Because love moves us.

This is why faith without action is dead (James 2:17): because by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit we are being conformed to share in the glory of Christ (2 Thess. 2:13-14). And we see that God's and Christ's love is action. Then through our true faith or perception of Christ in the Gospel, the Spirit would manifest itself on our hearts so we would emulate this action-love. Action is the justification of love and faith. 

There is an expectation of God on our lives. 1 John 4:16-17 says love is being made complete in us because in this world we are like Him. Love is becoming our condition because love and responding to love with action is what makes us like Him on the earth. Love is the expression of God on this earth. 

So are we going to align ourselves with culture's definition of love or God's definition of love? Only through God's definition of love are we able to experience love. It is this sacred love that allows us to experience love. It is sacred love that allows us to be conformed to His likeness. It is sacred love that was present in the beginning. So let us therefore renew ourselves back into God's definition of love and fulfill the expectation of God on our lives by living out a life of sacred love.

  "My purpose is that they may be 

encouraged in heart and united in love,

so that they may have the full riches of

complete understanding, in order that they

may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ,

in whom are hidden all the treasures of 

wisdom and knowledge."

-Colossians 2:2

Sacred Love Pt. 2

"The god of this age has blinded

the minds of unbelievers,

so that they cannot see the light

of the Gospel of the glory of Christ,

who is the image of God."

-2 Corinthians 4:4

We know that the Gospel of the glory of Christ is true sacred love in its most quintessential form because it most clearly display the sacrificial love of God. This is how we know what love is!

"This is how we know what love is:

Jesus Christ laid down his life for us."

-1 John 3:16

The god of this age (Satan) has blinded the mind of unbelievers so that they cannot see this sacred love. Now we know God's love is always present and there is a time when that love will pierce through the darkness that Satan has created, but it depends on the mind of the unbeliever (which we will get into later) and if that is God's will. Wait- God's will? If God's love is always present and He loves that unbeliever wouldn't He save that person? Thing to remember: God's unconditional love is not a love that justifies the sinner, but rather a love that justifies the sin. If it was a love that justified the sinner, everyone would be saved. 

There is an obvious battle present here. The battle between earthly and sacred love. What we have to do is recognize the battle between earthly and sacred love. Why do we have to recognize the battle? Because the battle between earthly and sacred love is not just a battle between the unbeliever and the believer. It is a battle amongst believers as well.

The great evil in this battle of love in believers is when we blur the line between the two loves. This reveals itself in our lives so many times. For instance, when we say we love our girlfriend or boyfriend and devote so much of our time into him or her rather than our relationship with God. This is confusing two distinctly different things.

An almost greater evil in this battle is when we are unable to acknowledge the difference or when we are unable to admit we are wrong in this. So many of us claim to know the difference between earthly and sacred love and how we go about it. But if we love God like we say we do then that should be enough to radically and drastically change the way we live our lives. For some people, our lives wouldn't look too different if we had no sacred love at all. It would probably just mean no church on Sundays or campus ministry or etc. etc. Therefore, we see in the battle of earthly and sacred love for the believer it is mainly drawing a line between religion and relationship. Are you just doing religion? Do you have a relationship with our God? Realizing this line is key to approaching God with a sacred love. 

Another question that you should asking yourself became apparent to me when I was at Passion in January. John Piper asked everyone this question: Do you feel more love by God when He makes much of you or when He enables you to make much of Him?

We have seen that earthly love is a very self-focused love which contrasts God's sacrificial love. Therefore, do you love God because He makes much of you (earthly) or because He enables you to make much of Him (sacred)? 

There is one common misconception in unbelievers and believers (not all) that is  important to realize in recognizing the battle between earthly and sacred love. That misconception is this: God created us so that He could love us. Yes, God loves us, but that is not why He created us. God created us so that we could love Him (Isaiah 43:7).

People who approach God with an earthly self-focused love feel distant from Him when something goes wrong in their life because in that one moment, they are not being made much of. People who approach God with a sacrificial sacred love feel like God is closer to them when something goes wrong in their life because they grasp the idea that His power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). Their reaction is to praise God all the more through their weakness or in other words, make much of Him. 

Recognizing the battle between earthly and sacred love has so much to do with evaluating your approach to God. The beautiful difference between earthly and sacred love is that you can actually formulate your life around the love you have for God. You can't formulate your life around the love you have for a chair. You can try to, but you will fail because God's love is the only love that is unfailing (like we have seen earlier).

Are you trying to formulate your life around a love you have on this Earth? Or is your sacred love for God your anchor? Evaluate your approach to God and recognize the apparent battle between earthly and sacred love.

In Part 3, we will discuss fighting the battle between earthly and sacred love. 

Sacred Love Pt. 1

"And now these three remain:

faith, hope, and love.

But the greatest of these is love."

-1 Corinthians 13:13

I have explained why hope is important, why faith is important, but why is love important? Love is the greatest of these three. Why? Many people know love is important, but it is one of those things we just know and can't explain why. Sadly, one of the reasons we can't explain love is because there are so many definitions about it. But I am only going to discuss two definitions (or categories) of love.

Lets first take a look at Adam and Eve. They lived in perfect fellowship with God. Everything was perfect amongst God's creation. Everything Adam and Eve did was worship to God- every sight, every step, every smell was an act of worship and thanksgiving to the Lord. Then, the serpent comes along and changes Eve's perspective about the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 3:6- "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it." Eve was only able to see this after her perception was changed by the serpent. She saw it as pleasing and good when it wasn't. And as a result, the perfect fellowship with God was broken. The rest of the generations to come leading up to Jesus was characterized by renewing the gap and separation created from this one event. We see as a result of this one event, earthly love was introduced into the world. 

What is earthly love?

"People will be lovers of themselves,

lovers of money, boastful, proud,

abusive, disobedient to their parents,

ungrateful, unholy, without love,

unforgiving, slanderous, without self control,

brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous,

rash, conceited,

lovers of pleasure

rather than

lovers of God."

-2 Timothy 3:2-4

Earthly love is a love of pleasure. It is a deception guiding us away from the true love. We see that Eve was a victim of this earthly love when she was deceived to think the fruit was pleasing and good. It is a love of pleasure.

How does culture display earthly love? Think about it. There are many instances. For example, listen to mainstream music now a days. What's the message? Get rich quickly or maybe its the boasts of one person because he or she is rich and successful or maybe its for the love of another person. Advertisements appeal to emotion saying that we could do it or we have control of our own lives or we can be a certain image. These are deceptions guiding us away from the true love. These are loves of pleasure. 

Culture has transformed the meaning of love and therefore, love has lost its potency or its significance.

Think about it, we say we love everything! We say we love a chair or some food and then with the same tongue we say we love the Lord. Surely, we don't love a chair the same way we love the Lord, but because culture has merge the meaning of love, there is no way to distinguish this with our words. In the Old Testament Song of Solomon, there were three Hebrew words to discuss the word love expressed in that book. There was: raya, ahava, and dod. And then in the New Testament, there is the Greek word agape which is used to describe the love of Christ in comparison to the other Greek words for love in the New Testament philia and storge (the word eros is not used in the New Testament). Think about how we only have one way to say love. There is not another word in our culture to express the love of God in comparison to the love of a chair. Our culture has merged these different loves into one. 

Love might have lost its potency by earthly standards but not by Heavenly standards. We know there is something other than what culture has to say about love. We know there is something other than earthly love.

There is sacred love.

Now I use the term 'sacred' love because sacred in Merriam-Webster's dictionary means 'dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity.' And thats exactly what our love for God is! It is set apart from earthly love meant to worship Him!
Now if sacred love models what Adam and Eve had in creation before the fall and they were created in the Father's likeness, then sacred love is meant to emulate the love that our Father has for us. And since this is so, I am going to define sacred love by describing what earthly love is not or the attributes of God's love.
It is important to understand certain attributes of God's love. Now there are many attributes but I will only discuss three.
God's love is unconditional. We do not have to meet any condition to receive His love in contrast to the performance-based earthly love. Now this unconditional love is not a love that saves or justifies the sinner. If it was a love that saved or justified the sinner, then everyone would be saved since God loves everyone. Unconditional love is a love that loves us before we meet the condition of sin. Now there is a difference between status and condition. A sinner's status is sin if they are not justified by faith. A believer's status is righteousness because it was imputed on us through the death of Jesus Christ. But there is still the condition of sin on believers. But praise God that in 1 Peter 4:8 it says, "love covers over a multitude of sins!" Now God loves everybody (don't get me wrong), but by saying He has an unconditional love means that He loves us despite the condition. I'm not saying He doesn't love the sinner whose status is sin. But by saying God unconditionally loves the sinner, it is like saying God loves the sinner because he or she sins. God unconditionally loves the righteous because though they have the condition of sin, they were chosen, appointed, elected, or called to eternal life (Ephesians 1:4-5, Acts 13:48). Our faith is a result of the election and when we choose to believe, our condition of sin becomes replaced by love because love covers over a multitude of sin! Thats why in 2 Peter 1:5 it says: ". . . add to your faith goodness: and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, LOVE." He loves us unconditionally because through His unconditional love, our condition becomes love. 
God's love is constant and unfailing. This is IMPORTANT and to stress the importance I will give Scripture: Exodus 15:13, Psalm 6:4, Ps. 13:5, Ps. 18:50, Ps. 21:7, Ps. 26:3, Ps. 31:16, Ps. 32:10, Ps. 33:5, Ps. 33:18, Ps. 33:22, Ps. 36:7, Ps. 44:26, Ps. 48:9, Ps. 51:1, Ps. 52:8, Ps. 62:12, Ps. 85:7, Ps. 90:14, Ps. 94:18, Ps. 107:8, Ps. 107:15, Ps. 107:21, Ps. 107:31, Ps. 109:26, Ps. 119:41, Ps. 119:76, Ps. 119:88, Ps. 130:7, Ps. 138:2, Ps. 143:8, Ps. 143:12, Ps. 147:11, Isaiah 54:10, Lam. 3:32, Hosea 10:12. Why is this important? I've heard so many people say that they feel so distant from God and they can't see Him. They approach God like His love is not constant, which is uncharacteristic of His love. His love is constant! Some people might rely on the earthly definition of love to describe God's love, and they treat His love like it is something of this earth. Earthly love dies, not God's love. This is important to understand because this is a fundamental difference between earthly and sacred love.
God's love is sacrificial. John 3:16, 15:13, and 1 John 4:16 clearly explains that God sacrificed Himself because He loves us so much. God broke perfect fellowship with Himself by giving us His Son to die for us on the cross. In Matthew 27:46, Jesus says: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" God had to deny this perfect fellowship for us. God had to turn away from Himself for us. God had to sacrifice because He has a sacrificial love. 
This is everything earthly love is not. This is sacred love.
I have drawn the lines between earthly and sacred love. In Part 2, I will discuss recognizing the battle between earthly and sacred love.