Loving vs. Being Loved

My brother told me yesterday that he was getting tired of reading about butterflies. Okay - I get it. I said I would post something today - but today I have not had the inspiration. So, here is something I wrote a few years ago while I was reading the book Uprising by Erwin McManus. I actually needed to read it again myself.

“There is a place where very few of us ever aspire to go, where the measure of our worth is not how much we have, but how much we give – of ourselves. This place is entered only by those who risk the dangerous quest for nobility, a quest that leads to a place of endless generosity.” -Erwin McManus (Uprising)

Seriously, you should read this book – and I ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie (or any other song of the Confederacy). I mean, the guy’s middle name is Raphael. Wasn’t he a mutant ninja turtle in his teens? How can you NOT read a book by a guy with a turtle’s middle name? Huh??

Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was. His response was – “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and your neighbor as yourself.” McManus points out that our greatest pursuit tends toward being loved. We want to measure our worth and value by what others think of us. But Jesus said it’s the other way around. The greatest thing you can do is to love, not to be loved. The beautiful thing is that the two tend to go hand in hand. And this, I believe, is the whole secret. When we are so consumed with being loved, we are selfish, self-centered, and, if we take it far enough along, we become neurotic and paranoid. BUT, if we are consumed with loving, we become the most lovable people on earth and get what we long for anyway. It’s a paradox full of contradiction.

“Love in its purest expression is not something that is received, but something that is given. God is love not because He is most loved, but because He is most loving. We love Him because He first loved us. . . To properly pursue love, we must strive to give it away rather than simply find it. When we begin to love in this way, we begin to find the wholeness God promises. Until we embrace this reality that what we need will only come when we give it away, we endanger ourselves by becoming the ultimate consumers.” -ERW

Seriously, read the book!