Attraction and connection can be good and bad. When I was with my Covenant Group at Woodmont Hills I learned about bouncing my eyes when they rested on an attractive woman in the wrong way. I still use that to this day. I use that habit for several reasons. I’m married is the first reason that pops into my mind. I wish I’d been more like that before I got married because it doesn’t go away when you get married. Sex has a strong pull, and if you don’t decide in advance how you’re going to respond it can destroy you, and it’s destroyed better men than me.

Those are my first thoughts on attraction and connection, but life is much bigger than sex. The law of attraction most certainly includes sex, but it goes beyond that. It’s Easter weekend as you know, and Jesus attracted thousands on Earth, and the Holy Spirit continues to draw men, women and children to him. There is something simple about the death, burial and resurrection that draws people to it even 2000 years after it happened. It’s rooted in the man Jesus who could be with anyone. We we allow Jesus to determine our “agenda” something powerful happens. His non-threatening demeanor (Isaiah 53) put prostitutes, adulterers, fornicators (sex outside of marriage), murderers and yes, tax collectors at ease. I think tax collectors got a bad rap because they ripped people off. I don’t like people who rip me off. You’ve got your “black-list.”

How do we move beyond the darkness to find attraction and connection again? It’s not easy is it. It’s certainly not easy in a quarantine. Zoom and the like take some of the edge off, but there’s nothing like connecting face-to-face.

Jesus was attractive because of his love for people. He made love. He created it in the beginning (John 1.1-2). I like the way the late Eugene Peterson put it in The Message.

The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word. The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one.

I think sometimes when I’m not attractive is because I am not present to God like Jesus. God is always present to us. That’s who he is. He can’t be who he isn’t. We battle a dual nature between good and evil, and if you think you can’t be evil take heed less you fall. There’s a reason the phrase “evil as sin” and “ugly as sin” exists because sin is evil and ugly every time. We’ve let Hollywood, Washington and Wall Street desensitize us to that. I’m mesmerized by the movement of God in my own city. The attraction to him brought 104 people to him in one Sunday at our church. A tornado ran sacked our building on Cowan Street, and shortly after that we had to worship online because of COVID-19. It was during those online services that 104 people gave their lives to Christ. He’s still attracting people. Not even a global pandemic can stop his love, and it never will.

I love my wife with every fiber in my being. My love for her is not even a fraction to the love the Father has for her. The same can be said for our daughter. We are striving to show her, even through our sin, that Jesus is forever beautiful even when the stripes across his body made him hideous.

What he did this day all those hundreds of years ago made him the most glorious and beautiful attraction we will ever be drawn towards. I don’t have to point out ugly to you. You know it all too well, but I can never remind us enough about the beauty of our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ.

I love you guys.