God is perfect and God is pure love, so that means pure love is perfect.

1 John 4:7 (NKJV)

⁷ Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

But many times when relationships fail, when we hurt one another, or when we see the worst in human behavior, people will conclude that love has failed. When we look at someone that we consider to be pure evil, we can conclude, there’s not enough love in the world to help or save that person. When someone has betrayed us over and over and over and over again, we can conclude we don’t have ‘enough’ love to forgive them.

Yeshua (Jesus) said that in the last days because of the evil and wickedness in the world the love of many would ‘wax cold’, their hearts would begin to harden…

Matthew 24:12  (NIV)

¹² Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,

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This is just a quick reminder that God’s love is perfect but ours isn’t.

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God’s love is 24 karat gold…it’s pure. Our love varies from 1 karat to 23 karats, depending on the situation. Just because ‘gold’ isn’t 24 karat’s doesn’t mean it’s not gold. And, just because our love isn’t 24 karat, doesn’t mean it’s not love.

When our love has failed, it doesn’t mean there wasn’t ‘enough love to give, it just means we didn’t ‘give enough love’.

That’s the reason when people in a marriage or family hurt, betray, deny, embarrass, mistreat, and disrespect one another, it doesn’t mean they don’t love one another. It just means their love isn’t ‘pure’ ‘perfect’ or ‘mature’ enough. And, that’s a life long process.

Think about it like this. Ask yourself the following questions and fill in the blanks YES or NO.

Do I love God? __________

Have I ever hurt God?__________

Have I ever disobeyed God?_________

Have I ever embarrassed God?____________

Have I ever disrespected God?______________

Now…

Does that mean that you don’t love Him?__________________

1 Peter 4:8  (NKJV)

⁸ And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins.”

BE BLESSTIFIED!

God demands that His name always be handled with reverence and respect…ALWAYS!

Matthew 6:9 (NLT)

⁹ Pray like this:

Our Father in heaven,
    may your name be kept holy

Exodus 20:7 (NLT)

⁷ “You must not misuse the name of the Lord your God. The Lord will not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name.

Remember, God’s name is not GOD. And, yes He has names that describe attributes of His character, (Yahweh or Yah, Yehovah Yirah, Yehovah Sabaoth, Yehovah Shalom, etc.) but God’s name is also His authority, His essence, His heritage,…and that of His Son and our Savior Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). His name is WHO HE IS.

Exodus 3:13-14 (NKJV)

¹³ Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”

¹⁴ And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”

Matthew 28:19 (NKJV)

¹⁹ Go ^[a]therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

2 Chronicles 7:14 (NKJV)

¹⁴ if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Those of us who claim to be called by His name and belong to Him….Those of us who claim the responsibility and honor of representing the authority of His name, his character and reputation… most of us want our names handled with respect. Most of us want people to respect the names of our parents, and those who are a part of our heritage with respect.

So, it’s unfortunate when the children of God think it’s okay to ‘play with the name of God’ by referring to Him with disrespect, in jokes, and even playing with prayer.

In conversations, movies, songs, comdey, memes, GIFs etc. people misuse and reduce God’s name to silliness for jokes for impact…

‘DEAR BABY JESUS’…

‘LAWD HAM MERCY’…

‘OH LAWD’…

‘HALLELU-YER’…

Shouting ‘JESUS CHRIST’ as an exclamation…

The list goes on and on.

One popular Writer/Producer/Director/Actor has made ‘HALLELU-YER’ extremely popular.

The fact is that the YAH syllable in HALLELUYAH is actually one of God’s names…

“Hallel- TO PRAISE OR GLORIFY Yah- SHORTENED FORM OF YAHWEH

When people jokingly pray to ‘BABY JESUS’, the Jesus that died for our sins wasn’t a baby. Our salvation at the time He was a child had not yet been secured. It’s silly and irreverent to pray to BABY JESUS for the sake of a joke. That’s not keeping His name holy.

What’s also unfortunate is that when called out on this rebellious behavior, many who claim to be Christian will immediately look for reasons to justify it, and explain how it’s not a bit deal…it’s not that serious. Too many times Christians ignore what the word of God explicitly says and finds excuses to do what they really want to do.

This equates to telling God what He must accept from us, rather than submitting to His clear expectations.

Even though we can’t tell those who don’t believe what to do, those of us in the Body of Christ should be the first to KEEP HIS NAME HOLY and hold one another accountable in doing so.

I love having fun, but some things need to left alone….Especially by Christians.

BE BLESSTIFIED!