Today is my Birthday

Today Jan 1st 2012 is my birthday, and I have had the pleasure, pain, misfortune and gain to have been visiting this earth for the past 54 years. At this writing I have slept for roughly two hours and spent the remaining time, studying, reflecting, praying, and hoping, all with one focus, restoration! Last night I had the pleasure of officiating a wedding for two people who were previously divorced for one reason or another. There were many emotions in that Church last night, a father long since estranged, a mother disgusted with a father, a sister who had been estranged, children from both sides of the fence each with their own fears and doubts, friends of the bride, friends of the groom, and enough skeptics to insure more than a little doubt. However as I shared with the coupe the words the Lord had given me for each of them and their families I was more than a little blessed. You see this union was all about restoration, the kind that can only come form love, pure and true love! Not the conditional love that we all too often place upon others, but rather the same love that Jesus showed us by His suffering and death. The kind of love that happens when those who believe come to a common understanding that God is the standard by which we must judge our own love. This type of love is foreign to nonbelievers and we should not expect them to understand, nor should we allow their view of love to direct ours. The very standard of love is that unconditional love that Paul writes of in 1st Corinthians in the 13th chapter again a love that the world does not, cannot, and rarely will understand. This is the love that will cause believers to be restored, renewed, and drawn together, this is the only love that will carry us through the most difficult times this word will take us through. As I reflect upon this past year of my life I do realize that on occasion I have allowed the world to set the standard of love that I have born. I have allowed it to dictate what love was to be, conditional at times, often judgmental, and not always true and heartfelt. If you are one whom I have shown conditional love to please accept my most sincere apologies, and may I ask today your forgiveness? May I now be so bold as to make the following statement: “if you are estranged from and angry with another believer then you do not have God’s unconditional love for them, but rather a worldly and conditional love.” Today is the day to make it right, let us all make 2012 a better year, not just for us but for those whom we love as well. I pray that each and every one of you would experience a year of restoration, healing, blessing, and most of all unconditional love! Gene Burroughs Servant of God