I have been thinking a lot about the following verse:

The Bible tells us that God is love and I think that this is very important if not the important thing that we need to understand and realize about God. The reason begins with understanding that the Bible does not say that God just shows love although he does. Or that God just has love although he does. But that God is love. In other words, God’s nature is love meaning that it would be impossible for God to be separated from love. It is like the fact that we are humans. We are never not human and every minute of every day we are humans. Nothing we ever do will ever separate us from being human because it is in our nature it is in our being it is who we are. The same is true with God being love. It is in his nature it is in his being it is who he is. Therefore, God is never separated from being love. Every minute of every day, God is lover. Put another way, God never ever does anything without doing it in love.

For some of us that may come as a bit of a shock to think of God as always being and acting in love but that is the truth. We may not always understand how God’s actions relate to love at the moment we are in them, but they do. Take Mary, the mother of Jesus for example. When we think of her, we hold her with the highest of respect and reverence as well we should for she was chosen from all women from all time to carry the very son of God. Think about that for a moment, God looked down on the Earth throughout all time because God was not limited to a specific time and found Mary because, as the Bible says, she found favor with God (Luke 2:28-30) that alone deserves our respect. Then God placed his only begotten and unique son within her to carry and raise on this earth until it was time for him to be revealed to everyone who he was and what his mission was. But before Jesus was revealed think about what Mary had to go through. Sure today, we give reverence to her as the mother of Jesus and the great miracle she got to carry and raise, but think about what life was like for her after the angel left her. Think for a moment what the conversation with Joseph must have been like. Teenage pregnancy has become fairly accepted today in our society over two thousand years later, but think about what it must have been like way back. Heck only forty years ago women would have had to drop out of school and had been shunned with almost a scarlet letter pasted on their chest imagine what it would have been like over two thousand years ago. This is one of the reasons that the Bible tells us that Joseph had “being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly.” (Matthew 1:19) The second reason would be that the punishment under the Mosaic Law would be death (Leviticus 19:20) because we must remember that in the time of Jesus’ birth a betrothal was seen to be just as binding as a marriage contract. So, in the eyes of the Jewish law, the Jewish society and even in the eyes of God, Mary and Joseph were for all intent and purposes married and if Mary had been with another man she under their law should be put to death. Now, we know that she had not been with another man, but that God supernaturally placed Jesus inside her, but whom do you think would believe her. If that even happened today who would believe you? And today you would have the benefit of at least the fact that it happened once before, but back then it had never before happened ever and here comes Mary, who was pure and innocent by all regards favored by God, telling her husband to be that God was the one who placed the baby in her belly. There is not a man that has ever lived who would have believed her prior to receiving the vision from God. In fact, Joseph would have had to be quite the man to not have blown up at her right there on the spot. And I am not speaking physically, just shouting at her at being a harlot for lying with another man because by all accounts in his mind she would have had to be with another man and the story about an angel was a cover. No matter how convincing she sounded, he would have felt betrayed and hurt and angry and yet this pregnancy was done out of love. But do think when Mary was standing there after explaining this to Joseph and having those condemning eyes staring back at her she was able to remember and hold on to that? Perhaps she was and perhaps that was why she was so favored by God, but I can saw it was not easy.

If that was not enough, imagine what it must have been like to be Mary. After the first three months of staying with Elizabeth, we can only assume that she returned to her home obviously showing. Whether married to Joseph at this time or not, you know that she was now know as the woman who was found to be with child. People then are as people are now and people will talk especially when there is gossip to be had and while I am sure that Joseph, a righteous man as the Bible declares, probably said the baby was his, people still murmured and rumored and whispered. How Mary must have felt as people constantly spoke behind her back and whispered and pointed towards her. Even after Jesus was born and they returned to their hometown, the people speaking and point as Mary had to endure because she knew in her heart that this was not only done out of love and that her son would save the world. Yet, how many times did it not look like it when she had to walk out her day to day. How many times did she have to hold on to the angels words and the things she treasured in her heart because of the way the enemy attacked to attempt to hide the fact that God was love and was moving on the face of the Earth in love. It must have been tough, it must have been unbearable and insurmountable and impossible to achieve on her own. But thank God that we never walk this walk on our own.

But look at how Mary was seen and treated after Jesus began his ministry. See how his disciples treated her as if she was the queen mother herself because after all she is the very Son of God, who is the King of Heaven’s, mother. Today, she is respected and revered and even in some circled unfortunately worshipped which is far more then God ever intended because for all she was she was never more then a servant of the most high God. But she did serve and no matter how hard the walk she had to face was she remember one important face as she walked and that was that God is love and that he never does anything apart from love because that is his very nature. That fact alone allowed her to walk through the darkest of valleys when the times were the toughest and people were the cruelest because she could see the light of love shining brightly in her spirit and in her heart and later in her son’s eyes. Oh, how we need to hold on to the very same things that Mary did and remember that everything that God does he does in love and hold on to that and see the shining light of Jesus’ love in our spirit as we walk through whatever he has called us to walk through.

I pray that I would be able to see that light of love as I continue to walk through what I am presently walking through and I pray that you can do the same.