Love Never Fails

When it comes to someone making very unhealthy choices that affect their soul, their behaviour, their family, their walk with God, again, you have got to have the strength and time to talk through the issues, and have a plan ready for them so that they can be restored. That’s why I put the scripture at the top of this chapter - even when we fail -

LOVE never fails.

We are not here to judge, to condemn, to criticise, or even to know ALL the de- tails... but we are here to love, encourage, lift, pray and be a support when resolve is weak. Jesus is called the ROCK - the rock of our salvation - meaning stability, ultimate strength and resolution. In being like Him, we too can be a sense of stabil- ity when the storms of life are brewing for those in our world.

King David, the great worshipper, even though he had murdered, committed adul- tery, as he humbled himself and sought purity of heart - God heard his cry... and the great warrior worshipper was revealed as just a guy who needed God. David still had to bear the fruit of that shocking season in his life, but the story of God redeeming man is actually what you remember about David’s life. And the songs of worship that come from a life that has lived through a valley season... there are no songs like it.

1 Samuel 16:7, ‘that the Lord sees not as man sees, for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.’ (AMP)

See, God is looking for repentance, which invokes true change.

The Father’s love is SO incredible. My favourite story and picture of His costly love is found in the story of the Prodigal Son.

This son had disappointed his Dad, but the heart of this Father was always on the lookout, poised and ready for the son to return. Even before the son had come home, his mistakes were already swallowed up in the love of his Dad.

The Lord saw us... and came down. Just like this Father who, even as the boy was a long way off, saw him, and ran TO him, and fell on him and kissed his neck - the boy in the pig pen.

Many people wouldn’t come close... they would only smell the stench of past mistakes, never getting close enough to get past the smell or the look of what was truly greeting them. A human being, FILLED with the promise of God.

But this Father’s love is so, so strong... the son standing before his Dad with the stench of wrong decision all over him, and the Father clothes him with the finest,puts on a party, and welcomes him home. ‘He looked beyond my faults and saw my need’.

I wrote these words in a song many years ago when I read Psalm 18 and got blown away again by God’s commitment to us all, that He responds to our cries, and when we’re in trouble, He is on the case.
Sometimes He moves heaven and earth to intervene, and other times he brings the answers through ordinary people like you and me. If we stand aloof to those people coming through in their faith, by judging their sometimes immature decisions, and icing them out when they make mistakes, then we shouldn’t call ourselves leaders.

It’s like parenting. The most wonderful and overwhelming privilege on the planet is to be entrusted to shape these lovely little lives. BUT, I can also tell you it is the most heart wrenching, emotionally exhausting, hard work there is.

We are not just leaders in the good times, no, you’ll find the true leaders standing strong in the hard times.
Do you know that the Word of God says that they will know us by our love? John 13:35 says, ‘By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’