Crazy for loving... us.

"Crazy for tryin' and crazy for dyin', He's crazy for loving... us."

Since love has got to be the most popular song topic ever, I couldn't help but hear Patsy Cline's voice singing this modified version of her classic song "Crazy", only this time about God's love for us.

Let's face it, from our perspective - here on earth, God's love for us appears to be just that: Crazy. If any one of us went to the lengths He did to woo someone who had absolutely no interest in us, they would at least need to have their head checked - if not be institutionalized.

Let's read 1 John 4:10 again: "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."

Does that meet our pop culture definition of "love"?

Not even close.

It's no wonder the Greeks had three words to describe the different kinds of love, but I guess even they had to stretch to find a word to describe this kind of action-resulting-from-a-decision-of-the-will.

Listen to any pop song about love, from any era. Who is it about? Or, should I say, who is looking to benefit from the "love". It's always the lover, never the beloved. The lover is singing the song about the way the beloved makes him or her feel.

Think of the songs about "lost love" or "love gone bad", this seems to happen because the lover and the beloved (or the once loved) don't have "feelings" for each other any more.

Is this the same "love" God showed for us?

Not even close.

God loved us for our sake, not His.

That's tough for us to wrap our minds around so I'll say it again: God loved us for our sake, not His.

This is definitely something that we cannot learn from anyone but God, because this love has nothing to do with the feeling-based "love" peddled by singers and greeting card companies.

A people as broken and wretched as we are, a self-centered people who, by nature, want nothing to do with holiness, we can't understand loving like this. God doesn't love us because of a feeling. He loves us because, of His own free will, he decidedto love us. He decided to and gave his Word (both literally and figuratively) that he would. And as is just a part of His divine nature - He keeps His word.

Verse 8 says it best: "...God is love."

God is love. But... wait, God is a being, not a feeling. So, then love, real love, must not be a feeling. Real love is a decision, based on benefiting the other person, regardless of the cost, potential benefit or lack thereof.

Loving us cost God dearly: it cost Him his one and only Son. That is, it cost Him, His first and His best. That was the price he paid: God gave that which was the most valuable to him, so that we would not spend eternity in torment. Put simply: He suffered so we could benefit.

God sacrificed Jesus for every single person on earth.

Every single one. Not just Christians, on the contrary - there were no Christians when Jesus was sacrificed.

Every single one. Atheists, agnostics, pagans, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Jesus died for every single one.

Wait, Jesus died for atheists? People who can't stand the mention of his name? Yep. Doesn't sound like the kind of love you want to write a song about does it?

Jesus died for all people, but for anyone to reap the benefits of this act, they have to believe that Jesus is who he says he is: The Son of God.

If we believe this and acknowledge it, God lives in us and we live in Him.

Verse 18 goes on to say that this kind of love - real love - is fearless. Fearless, because we don't have to be afraid when we stand before God one day. He will not judge us as ones hostile toward Him; he will accept us as sons and daughters. Fearless because we will not be punished.

That's what love is: Fearless. And, sometimes, in our world, fearless = crazy. So maybe he is "...crazy for loving... us."

Created 9 months ago