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Said I Loved You, But I Lied....

Does anyone remember this song? I do. I was in high school when it came out and I just loved it so much because the title makes you think one thing, but the lyrics speak of the opposite. It is beautiful.

But that is not what this blog is about.

There is a scene from the movie Boomerang where Halle Berry's character looks at the Eddie Murphy character after he insists that he loves her and tells him that "love" would have brought him home the night before. It is a powerful statement because love is not a word. It is an action.

In the movie Closer (last movie reference, I promise!) Jude Law's character tells his girlfriend (played by Natalie Portman) that he loves her and she responds, "Where? Show me. Where is this love? I can't see it. I can't touch it. I can't feel it. I can hear it. I can hear some words, but I can't do anything with your easy words." And Jude Law's face just falls because he knows what she is saying is true.

I've said it in other blogs and I will say it again: Words are wind.

How many times have we heard, "I love you," but there is no action to back up the statement. It is better not to hear the words, then to hear them ring hollow because there is nothing backing them up. Loving someone requires actions. One should not simply say, "I love you;" one must DEMONSTRATE "I love you."

Is it love if you never want to spend time with the person? Is it love if you do things that you know will upset the person? Is it love when our initial attraction and fervor wears off and suddenly we could not care less about the person?

Of course not! If we were the person hearing the declaration of love and being treated as I've just described, we would assume that the declarant was a liar.

Imagine, then, how God must feel. How many times do we say "I love You" to him, but we are lying. To be fair, we might actually believe what we are saying. We might genuinely think that we love God.....but our actions betray us. Time and again our actions demonstrate that we are saying we love Him, but we are lying.

Where is our love? Do we show Him by spending time in His word? I'm not talking about reading a handful of verses first thing in the morning. I mean, real Bible Study where we read and meditate on His word and let it transform us and change our actions.

Can He feel our love when we choose to do the things that honor Him and bring glory to His name, even if they are inconvenient to us and cause to lose friendships and associations that we hold dear?

Have we lost our fervor? Have we, like the Church in Ephesus, forgotten our First Love (See Rev. 2:1-7)?

Are we lying to God when we tell Him we love Him?

He wants our full demonstration of our love because He demonstrated His love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners He sent Christ to die for us (See Rom.5:8).

Let us walk the path of inconvenience and truly demonstrate our love for God with our whole lives and not just easy words.

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