Extravagant Love

     One of my favorite songs is "Your Love is Extravagant" (which is surprisingly by Casting Crowns), mostly because of one word: extravagant. Why? Well, first of all it is quite a fun word to say so as you read say, "extravagance". Try it fast. Try saying it slowly. Now try it with an accent. Fun, but that's not why I like it.

     Extravagant means "exceeding the limits of reason" or "lacking in moderation, balance and restraint" or "extremely or excessively elaborate" and that's beginning to come to why I do truly enjoy this word. I read a lot of atheist writing - I admit it is my guilty pleasure - and the most universally accepted atheist idea is that there is no reason, no evidence to believe in God or basically that it doesn't make sense to believe in Him. Now, I obviously believe in God and I find that believing in Him is completely reasonable but that's not what I want to talk about. However, I want to talk about the part of God that doesn't make sense to me, and it actually boils down to His very identity and the purpose of His every action.

     His love doesn't make sense. It just doesn't. How can anything, even something that is an all powerful creator love anyone, much less everyone, with an infinite quantity and quality? How can someone never stop loving extravagantly? Are we aware of how much effort extravagance takes? Even there, these questions are limited by searching for an answer while the answer exceeds even the possibility of perceiving (forget comprehending) God's extravagance. I guess what I mean is, when I think extravagance I think this:

     

But when God thinks extravagance it's more like this:

     Sorry if you got excited for a second, but there is no image I could find for it, mostly because such an image does not and simply cannot exist. My point is we cannot perceive infinity and so God's love shouldn't make sense to us. It, God's love (and God is love so I could just say God), is the definition of extravagant. It exceeds the limits of reason. So, in the same action, it exceeds the capability of our intelligence to comprehend how or why his love is so immense or even what the extent of the identity of God is. We don't even understand who God is! So not only as Christians do we believe that God is all powerful, all good and present in every second of time and inch of space, but we also believe that we will never understand Him or why He is the way He is other than that He is the way He is because that's the way it is (and He is the Way by the way).

     Notice: English students and teachers please excuse that last sentence because I think it was a disastrously crazy run on. Do this because, in my super, very, really humble opinion, it was epic and you should read it again.

     Now, if God's love is so infinite and we do in fact believe in this crazy lover, then our love should be like His, right? Our love for Him should try to be as great as His love for us, right? Yeah, so we build stupid big buildings (like that one of St Patrick's Cathedral above) covered in the finest art the human race has ever produced, then we worship Him in it, and that is the sole purpose of the building, right? Right. Yes. Makes total sense. He deserves our best. Ok, great. Got it. We'll build and worship to glorify God as best as we possibly can. That's good. It'll be hard and will take a while, but we can do it and we love You too, so this is no problem.

     I think most, or at least some, Christians would agree that glorifying God in this way is great, but we can't just live in a cathedral and never leave. Plus, our God is pretty smart and He gave us each our own little portable cathedrals: our bodies. 

     Side note: Does that make a pregnant lady being in a cathedral building like Inception? A cathedral within a cathedral within a cathedral? What if she has twins? ...ok, done with that.

     You've heard it before, "Your body is a temple," and it is if you're Jewish. Just kidding. I'm really ADD  right now. How do we possibly get back on point from here. 

Well, here's the question: What is a temple or a cathedral or church building for? 

Here's the answer: We use them to worship and love the Lord. 

Second question: What's so extravagant about my body?

Second answer: If you don't know, you're not doing it right. (Disclaimer: I don't actually do this right either, but it's easy to say once you've heard smart men like Ennie Hickman say it first)

     God's love doesn't make sense. We constantly turn our backs on Him, spit on His laws and disgrace his sacrifice and yet He has the greatest love that we will ever know. Our love should be similar to His since He is the perfect model of love. As we go through life, we should be doing things that don't make any sense whatsoever. People should (at least sometimes) look at us in absolute bewilderment because the things we do are so radically loving that they don't make sense. Why doesn't this happen more often?

Galatians 1:10  ~~  "Am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still pleasing men, I should not be a servant of Christ."

     We're not given our bodies to please men, but rather to deny our earthly brothers' and sisters' expectations by turning to Christ. Sometimes that means physically turning toward those we would normally pass by and have a conversation. If a beggar walks by my car expecting nothing or at most very little, why do I not turn to Christ and obliterate his expectations by showering on him whatever I can give. When I sit in class and everyone is complaining about something, why do I not have positive and uplifting things to say? Why do I do what everyone wants me to do which is complain? When I have nothing else to do why do I sit on Facebook judging people or finding the prettiest girl's page to lust over when I could call up an old friend for coffee or write nice things on other people's walls? Why do I even have to do that on Facebook, and why don't I, instead, write uplifting notes to randomly hand to friends or even strangers? Why is it so hard to buy the person who is in line behind me a lunch and sit and get to know him or her? Why don't I work at the soup kitchen every weekend or even once a week after school? Why have I never traded shirts with a homeless guy? Why can't I have a decent conversation or even get to know a little about the guy who sits next to me in class because I think he is a little awkward to talk to? Why? Why?! Why?!?!?!

Answer: Because I cannot love without any moderation, balance or restraint on my own.

     I know you don't have all day to sit and read this, so here's the thing I think God want us to understand. If we are predictable and normal, we're doing it wrong. But, if people CAN'T understand why you do the good things that you do, and if your loving actions "exceed the limits of reason and necessity", then it's not your love at all. You're doing it right. You've let God in and He's in control because you want Him to be.  

Because you know that you can't love extravagantly.

But, you also know that He can.