What is required for us to be loved?
Can anyone experience love, or does it take some particular set of circumstances?
Steve Brown says that the only people who can truly be loved are the unlovely. But how does that work?
“We hurt ourselves and those we love because love isn’t love until it’s love that takes place in the context of the unlovely.”
“If you don’t think you’re a sinner, you’ll never dance before the throne of your Redeemer.”
“If you don’t see how needy you are, you’ll never know the absolute pure joy of being free with others who admit it and are free.”
The only love we have to offer is the love that we’ve been given.
“Love, in response to goodness, obedience, and faithfulness, isn’t love, that’s reward. The only way we can know love is to be unlovely.”
Steve admits that it sound terrible, but it’s true. The fact is, we are all unlovely; even after we meet Christ we act in unlovely ways. The Bible doesn’t not speak very highly of the human heart and condition.
“The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately corrupt, if any man says he’s not a sinner then the truth is not in him.”
We often get caught in the trap of believing our unloveliness makes us unworthy in God’s eyes. However, Steve says the opposite is true. The moment we come face to face with our own wretchedness and need, is the moment we are ready to receive God’s love.
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1
When we are loved by God, it allows us to love others. If the love of God is not in us and has not captured our heart, we cannot hope to share that love with anyone else.
Steve Brown is the founder of Key Life Network, which exists to communicate that the deepest message of the ministry of Jesus is the radical grace of God. Having spent 25 years as a pastor, Brown now devotes much of his time to the radio broadcasts Key Life and Steve Brown, Etc. which are currently heard on more than 600 outlets.
Key Scripture: Ephesians 2:8-9
Featured Songs: More than Conquerors – Steven Curtis Chapman; Restless – Audrey Assad; Chain Breaker – Zach Williams
Hidden Agendas
