Loved

 This comes from a devotional that I delivered on November 10, 2023 to our Care Night groups.

We live in a broken world. Take a look at the people around you. They’re here due to brokenness. Not one person sitting here tonight can honestly say that brokenness is NOT the reason they’re here. We are either victims of brokenness or guilty of hurting somebody, but oftentimes it’s both, and both create brokenness inside us.

Every time I sat in your seat, I was dealing with either pain I had caused others or pain that others had caused me — and sometimes pain I had caused myself by caving to the temptations of the enemy. And sometimes all three. Attending sessions like this requires bravery — admitting we need support and love from people who are willing to support and love us. I know.

Tonight I want to present the key reason we are here and to give you hope. In the New Testament, Jesus gives us a command:

Mark 12:30-31 says, after a scribe asked Jesus what the greatest commandment of all was: (take volunteers to speak this) “And you shall love the Lord you God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Take about thirty seconds and think about this. I’ll read it again. What would these look like in practice?

“And you shall love the Lord you God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”

**30 seconds**

So? Tell somebody next to you what this would look like. (30 seconds).

So? What would this look like? (Take answers)

Ok, now I want you to give yourself a rating. From 0 to 5, 0 being I never follow these two commands and 5 being 100% of your day you follow these commands. Show me your rating on your hand. 

So we all sin . . . Brokenness. The apostle Paul struggled with this also. In Romans chapter 7 vs 19, Paul writes

“For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.”

I don’t know what y’all know about Paul, but I find him to be one of the most fascinating transformations in the Bible — a murderer of the exact people he converted to because he met Jesus. Right on the road to continuing his quest to rid the empire of Christ-followers. Jesus met him. Right where he was.

Funny — that’s where He met me too. Right where I was. In the middle of my mess. And yet look where Paul went. He went on to be a key component in the spreading of the Gospel. WHY?  I want you to listen to this song — the lyrics — because this is the hope that we have, regardless of where we have to be met.

Play “He’s Crazy About You.”

I saved this piece of scripture for last, and I wanted to share it with you in four different translations so that you can fully feel the impact of the words you are about to hear. I still struggle with repeating out loud it because the impact it has one me makes me breathless.

Read each translation.

This is my life verse. No matter who you are. No matter what you have done or what others have done to you — He died to save us from an eternity separated from Him. For those of you who have children — imagine somebody loving you MORE than you love your own kids. That’s God.

Let’s pray.

Father Thank you so much for sending your son Jesus to take the burden of an eternity separated from you. We enter the last four weeks of this session of Care Night on our own road, and tonight we ask you to meet us right where we are. Some of us have embraced the full meaning of what it means to be loved by you and we are leaning in hard, but some of us struggle with leaning in. Some of us keep taking the wheel from you and driving our own struggle bus down this road. Some of us have just pulled over on the side of the road and given up driving, and some of us really just want to let you drive, but the drivers seat is difficult to give up. Please allow your Holy Spirit to move tonight through this place as the healing continues. We thank you for this community of brave participants and servants. And we pray this in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen