Upon waking this morning I found myself with the all too familiar feeling of being hit by a semi...I ache from head to toe. I knew what I would experience the moment my eyelids began to flutter. Her breath was hot. Wrapped around my shoulders were her moist, miniature hands clinging to my nightgown with a death grip. My sassy five year old strikes again! Ever since she was born she has loved sleeping in our bed. Even though I have tried everything to break this behavior she inevitably snuggles herself against me the moment I have fallen asleep. She has appropriately earned the nickname "Velcro". So as you can imagine with every movement I make she is attached as if we were one. Her nose plastered to my skin like a hound...breathing in all that I am.
It reminds me of how my relationship with God should be. I should desire to inhale all that He is. Press in so close that it's as if we were one. Hunger to obey and please Him so deeply that I surrender all, and follow His every footstep. This is the desperate cry of my heart. I pray that He would change my desires...make my heart what it should be. Forgiveness. Patience. Humility. Sacrifice. Love...even for my enemies. Impossible? No, not with God. Difficult? Yes. Yet, this is what I (we) are called to do. John 13 34 A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. Wow. Powerful. To be honest, I think WE THE CHURCH are failing. Yes, this passage is speaking of loving other Christians...but lets be honest sometimes other Christians feel like our enemies. Beyond that we are called to love everyone like Christ did.
So, instead of being caught up in the romantic notions of love and Valentines Day I would encourage you to remember what love really is and examine your heart.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Until then...
Jessie
It reminds me of how my relationship with God should be. I should desire to inhale all that He is. Press in so close that it's as if we were one. Hunger to obey and please Him so deeply that I surrender all, and follow His every footstep. This is the desperate cry of my heart. I pray that He would change my desires...make my heart what it should be. Forgiveness. Patience. Humility. Sacrifice. Love...even for my enemies. Impossible? No, not with God. Difficult? Yes. Yet, this is what I (we) are called to do. John 13 34 A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. Wow. Powerful. To be honest, I think WE THE CHURCH are failing. Yes, this passage is speaking of loving other Christians...but lets be honest sometimes other Christians feel like our enemies. Beyond that we are called to love everyone like Christ did.
So, instead of being caught up in the romantic notions of love and Valentines Day I would encourage you to remember what love really is and examine your heart.
1 Corinthians 13
1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Until then...
Jessie
Thank you, I so needed this today.
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