My life is not boring
But it could use a fresh drop or two or excitement
Pursuing love could be fun.
He said make it your great quest.
To pursue love is not to chase romance, necessarily.

His undeserved gifts in my heart

It’s more to give, pour myself out
For someone who’s discouraged
or ill or hurting in some way.
It could be adding joy to a stranger in the store.
So that pursuing love is an adventure.
Kind of a Sherlock Holmes
Finding out when and where a few drops of love
can be poured out.

EAGERLY PURSUE and seek to acquire [this] lo
[make it your aim, your great quest]…
(1 Corinthians 14:1 AMP)

Tender Love

We can eloquently and intelligently prophesy to the church.
Ifi we’re missing love for the church
It’s ashes, worth nothing.
If we have faith to believe miracles into life
But we don’t love like God’s love for those we help
We’re a nobodies.
Love matters most.
Love is sweeter than I ever realized.
God’s love is tender and compassionate..
So our love should be like God”s.

And if I have prophetic powers (the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose),
and understand all the secret truths and mysteries and possess all knowledge,
and if I have [sufficient] faith so that I can remove mountains,

but have not love
(God’s love in me)
I am nothing (a useless nobody). (1 Corinthians 13:2 AMP)
The Lord is like a father to his children,
tender and compassionate to those who fear Him.
Psalm 103:13 (NLT)

Perfect Love

For by a single offering
He has forever completely cleansed
and perfected those who are
consecrated and made holy.
(Hebrews 10:14 AMP) ,

If I give myself to Him
Wholly completely
With Jesus as my first Love
Not just obeying by rote
His sacrifice covers me once
And i never have to sacrifice for sin again.
I’m cleansed, washed clean from every sin
And even perfected
By His one sacrifice.
…His sacrificing, perfect Love for me.
…My warm but imperfect love for Him.

…Led to the perfection of the imperfect forever.

They Showed us How to Give

Nor [was this gift of theirs merely the contribution] that we expected,
but first they gave themselves to the Lord and to us [as His agents]
by the will of God [entirely disregarding their personal interests,
they gave as much as they possibly could,
having put themselves at our disposal
to be directed by the will of God]–
(2 Corinthians 8:5 AMP)
They lived out the cross.
They poured out their hearts like Jesus did to His Father.
I know people like this.
Unselfish.
Loving.
Completely the Lord’s.
Hearts completely Jesus-like.

Hearts

Giving is not about money.
It’s about God’s grace.
It’s about His mercy.
Then what will our response be?
Will it be grace and mercy from us?
And last, last of all we give.
And our gift
Because of God’s love poured in us
Is more generous than any gift
We’d give if it was without the gift
Of ourselves to God.

The Subject Is …

The subject is my Life.
Actually not my Life
But my life.
I want my life to count.
Not just for love, even though that is beautiful.
Not just for truth, although it’s powerful.
Not just for yoga
even though you can make it a form of physical stretching and prayer to the Lord.
I want my life to count for my Savior, my Jesus.
He wrapped me in security when I was fighting against Him for a few months.
He taught truth to a group of 300 women in this day and age,
and amazingly truth appears a lot like love.
If only we as humans could speak truth as love the way Jesus does.
He gently spoke truth in love to the adulteress caught in the act.
To feed 5,000 announcing “you guys of little faith.”
He said “Believe. Don’t worry. Take life a day at a time. Jesus has your life in His Hand.”
I want to be like Him….loving, healing everyone….or at least many.
I want a heart of tears to take my people under My wing.
I want to give all of Me asking Why like Jesus did?
I want to love.
Change me Lord, make me like You.

 

 

 

Love From our Hearts

Our heart

Love. We love food, our cars, our pets, our homes. But there’s a different meaning, same word. To love our neighbor is to be gentle with their soul. It’s to cause no harm or hurt to them. Right now is a critical time in our world. People feel friction with Christians. We’ve got a reputation for being unkind. Sin is sin but the sinner needs grace from a Savior not condemnation. Loving our neighbors, our children, an orphan in another country, a widow down the street, the couple of guys that live next door, is our calling. We have to love them and give our hearts to them not our knowledge.

Love does no wrong to one’s neighbor [it never hurts anybody]. Therefore love meets all the requirements and is the fulfilling of the Law. Besides this you know what [a critical] hour this is,… For salvation (final deliverance) is nearer to us now than when we first believed (adhered to, trusted in, and relied on Christ, the Messiah). (Romans 13:10, 11 AMP)

Wisdom, skill and mercy

To Him Who by wisdom and understanding made the heavens, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever; (Psalm 136:5 AMP)

God made the sky, the stars, the beauty of the universe for us. He didn’t just form it so spectacular from His skill, though He had skill. He formed it by wisdom and understanding. He knew that we would appreciate vastness, and twinkles, and puffy cumulus clouds. In fact in His wisdom He created us with a capacity to enjoy the heavens.

Sunset

He was a God sitting on His throne longing to show His mercy to someone. Mercy burns in the heart of God. It’s nothing with no one to give it to. So He made us. He probably taught Adam and Eve mercy and kindness and wisdom as they walked and chatted those days in the Garden. Then we fell. What did He do? He sacrificed animals for their forgiveness, clothed them both. All out of mercy He cleaned up the spiritual mess they had made.

When we’ve been in heaven 10,000 years we’ll still be learning the kind of mercy that burns in our hearts for the good of others. This verse sits in the middle of a Psalm that has “His mercy endures forever” in every single verse. It’s a reassurance over and over when we doubt God’s goodness to us. And it shows that every perfect gift He gives us is from His mercy.

Nearer to Jesus

And it was of His own [free] will that He gave us birth [as sons] by [His] Word of Truth, so that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures [a sample of what He created to be consecrated to Himself]. (James 1:18 AMP)

His Word of truth is a seed He’s planted in each of us. He wants it to grow inside us to cause us to birth fruit. In this verse they were the firstfruits, long before us, to be an example of what was to come…us.

A missionary who goes to Haiti or any other country long term are consecrated seems to me. They give up their activities and possessions and luxuries to go and share Jesus with people who may or may not be receptive. These missionaries have to be consecrated to the Savior, pulled away from the world unto His love that reaches out to the needy.

He created all of us to be consecrated to Himself. That means leaving the world behind and keeping his cross in our hearts.

The cross witthin

But it also means we are consecrated or very near to His heart. Pulled away from everyone and everything and pulled tight to Him. We still live here on this earth, still have problems, but live in the healing of our Savior.

Letter of Light

Every good gift and every perfect (free, large, full) gift is from above; it comes down from the Father of all [that gives] light, in [the shining of] Whom there can be no variation [rising or setting] or shadow cast by His turning [as in an eclipse]. (James 1:17 AMP)

No shadow

There’s a gift God gave us that is perfect. It is a letter from Him to me, to you. There is information to teach us how to pray, to show us how to live, to show us His anger at unholiness and to give us the most sacrificial, personal picture of His love for us and the washing away of our unholiness so that He can have a tender, warm relationship in our hearts.

This letter of course is the Bible, God’s word to us. Because it’s a true picture of history, of people and of the Accuser, there is some darkness in it. But our God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. There are verses scattered profusely throughout the Bible that are bright light, joy and encouragement.

I went through a time of struggle when God’s letter and His love was all I had. It brought me through that time feeling loved and it’s continued even to the present. Adrian Rogers said that every other book can be read by us but the Bible is the book that reads us. It seems to understand our need and is able to fill it because the Lord of Lights is present at the reading of His word.

We Have in Common

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,(Ephesians 3:14 KJV)

All of us on earth are one family, named after Jehovah and our Savior Jesus. We’re not only named after Him we also are created with the image of God, even the most lost of us. And we have a common enemy, the Accuser Satan. We should all realize, especially those who read the Bible, that we on earth are on the same side. Our enemy is not people, it’s the demons of the Accuser.

The evil one tempts me with food.

Too much food

I enjoy eating too much. But I maybe know someone who may not love Jesus who is disciplined in food and exercise. I bet this person could encourage me in how to eat better. Maybe I could pray for him/her when they have a need. We’re on the same side. We have a common enemy.