Where Is the Love?

I am very blessed to have a wonderful girlfriend who really seems to show me and teach me many things, I dont think she knows all the things I learn from her...good and bad for that matter! j/k! Anyway "Where is the Love?" by the Black Eyed Peas is one of her favorite songs and here recently we were cruising around town and she put that track on. The whole song is about love or rather the lack there of in the world, which has terrible effects such as murder, suffering, oppression, etc. Now I dont know if the definition of evil equals the lack of love, but I think that may be best saved for another day. Sorry for that detour...ADD or something. 

In one part of the song the lyrics state "you got to practice what you preach" or something along those lines, and for some reason that sent me searching deeply inward...one of the reasons I love music. My first path after hearing this was to of course to look at the members of the Peas lives to see if I could find anywhere they weren't practicing what they were preaching! I tried to wade through all the random tabloids I read while standing in line at supermarkets, or the random blurbs I heard on MTV, in the end I had to settle with judging Fergie as a hypocrite because of some shady video and lyric choices in the past...and that's where it hit me wheres the love in that!? That move right there was hypocritical on my part...Lord knows with a past like mine I have no place to be judging someone else or thinking I am better than anyone.

So I started looking at all my relationships and all my dealings with anyone and I came to the conclusion I suck at love! I realized that the dependency of my love really depends on how into myself I am at that time or how into my walk with Jesus I am at that time. When I am focused on Christ and my faith in him by his grace love seems to pour out of me and I dont even realize I am doing it. Yet when I am into other things besides Christ my love is lazy and spotty at best, so I see that without Christ I do not really know love and I would even venture to say that apart from Christ I dont even know true love. I am the branch he is my root, if fruit is to grow from my life it first has to be rooted deep into God's love, mercy and grace leaving a direct route for the light of the Spirit to pour out on the world around me. So to answer the Peas question the love is in Christ.

I realize that I may be foolish for taking on a topic like love but this topic has been on my heart for the last few weeks, however one thing I am being reminded about from my girl is that it should be on my heart all the time.

"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." - 1Cor - 13:4-7