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"Lookin' for love in all the wrong places,
Lookin' for love in too many faces..."

If you listened to the radio in 1980 at all you are probably familiar with the song Lookin’ for Love sang by Johnny Lee.   The single hit gold for selling over one million copies. I remember it well.  I sang along with it while driving down the road and remember thinking, “This is me.”

Why did I and so many other people connect with this song?  Well, as I brought out in my last post, I, like many others, needed to be loved.  In fact, I could say I really needed to just know what love was.  I don’t think I even had a clue.  Do you? 

Are you missing out?

Of course, there are different kinds of love:  the love a parent has for a child, the love a sister has for her brother, the love a husband has for his wife.  These are all good.  But unless you understand the love that God has for us, for you, then you are missing out!

So, I want to explore this with you over the next few weeks.  Now, I told y’all that I am a pastor’s wife…maybe I should say warned you.  And you know pastors, they always use an acronym or start all their points with the same letter.  It’s kind of worn off on me.  But I did want to give you something that would help you remember to LOOK UP.  So, that’s what we are going to use…LOOK UP!

And, here we go!

God’s love brings life!

The first letter, L, is for life.  God’s love brings life!  In John 10 Jesus tells us, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”  Who is they?  That would be you and me.  One of His goals is to give us life, both now and eternally.  What does that have to do with love, you may ask?  Check out this next verse:

Okay, so here’s the deal.  God loves us.  He loves us so much that He sent His only Son to die on a cross for us.  He took the penalty of death for our sins and was then raised to life on the third day. When we accept the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross, our sins are forgiven and we are given new life.  We are also given eternal life.  Here is a great video clip to explain this much better!

If you have not accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, please consider doing so. If you like, email me.  I can either talk to you or put you in touch with someone else who would love to talk to you.

He will renew our thinking.

Right now, however, I want to focus on the new life that we are given because of the love God has showered on us.  2Corinthians 5:17 tells us, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”   We don’t just get life; we get a new life as a new person.  The old is gone!!!  So, if we let Him, He will clean out all the yuck inside of us.  He will heal all the hurts.  He will renew our thinking and change the habits that harm us and others.

Before Christ, when I looked at my life, I was not real excited about it.  If I was honest, I didn’t like me very much.  I was hurt, broken, angry, bitter, and scared.  In fact, I was pretty much at the end of my rope.  The only thing that kept me from falling off the radar was my little girl Allie. She kept me plugging away.

Forgiveness brings healing.

Once I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior, God began a work in me that was miraculous.  He forgave me for all the wrong things I had done AND gave me the ability to forgive others.  In forgiving others of the wrongs they had done to me, healing began to fill my soul.  And He brought beauty from ashes, life from death.  Because, God’s love brings new life. 

As I studied the Scripture, He began to transform my thinking.  I began to be able to tell the lies this world had fed me from the TRUTH He spoke to me.  Again, a new life.

He began to show me what love really was.  Believe me, I had no idea.  New life!!

God has brought me so far that the old me is mostly unrecognizable.  I say mostly because I certainly have not arrived!  But when I look back, I can’t believe that person was me.   I’m not the same person.  I am a new creation.  I have a new life.

God’s love gave me a new life.  And He wants that for you as well.  But you have to trust Him.  For a new life, you have to accept Him.  You have to ask Him!  He will not force you.  But He is waiting with outstretched arms.  The question is, will you run into them?