Loving people is not the easiest thing to do sometimes. I am not the greatest at loving people when they love me back the way I understand love, so to love others who don't always love me back or love me the way I understand love gives me a hard time. Pursuing relationships with others is also not one of my strongest areas which kinda goes hand in hand with loving others. Today I pray for God to give me grace, mercy, forgiveness, and love so that I may be able to do these things out of the overflow that he has blessed me with. Only with God's help will I ever begin to love those around me. Those who I love but that I suck at showing love to, those who I cannot stand, and those I forget about.
I do not want to be that crappy friend anymore that shoves my beliefs and values onto others. I need to realize that loving does not mean pulling someone into what we think is right or better, but loving them no matter where they are. No matter how many things we disagree on or the things we do not have in common. Love is not built on common things, but it is the thing that bridges those wide expanses between two hearts. A bridge that does not necessarily have to be two-way. There is a quote that I love from Brian Andreas, "How many people can you love before it's too much she said & I said I didn't think there was any real limit as long as you didn't care if they loved you back."
God is the same way. He does not have a quota that he reaches and then stops loving and he also does not need us to love him for him to love us. He first loved us. He is love. It is his nature, his identity. It is from that that he pours it into us. We are capable of loving out of that overflow, not out of our love but his. We do kinda mess it up, but without his love first, how do we expect to love others. See his love is not selfish or self-pleasing. It is something that pours out not takes in.
I really need a lot more God love in my life. That is the kind of lover I want to be.
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Friday, January 8, 2010
Started in Job, ended up in John
This morning class was canceled so I decided to lounge around and read instead. I read a bit in Job and then I turned over to John. For a while now I have really loved the book of John. I love the stories and the things Jesus did and said as told by John. At Urbana we went through the first four chapters which are powerful.
One story that sticks out to me in particular is the story of Jesus and the woman at the well. Her story starts in John 4:4. I love how Jesus just goes up to her even though she is a Samaritan woman, and not only was she a Samaritan, she had been married several times and was with another man that was not her husband. Jesus knew all of this and still asked her for some water! He did not care what she had done in the past or what she was currently doing. She had sinned and He still met her where she was, He loved her. All of us as humans have differences. We are all unique. We all have different backgrounds. We have different sins, but we all have sinned. They may be different, but they are all sin.
Some of us might look at the woman at the well and be like, "Look at that woman! She has had five husbands and is now with some other man! We are not as bad as her." I know I have felt that way. I have been that person who looks down on others who fall into sin after sin and don't seem to care. My heart breaks for these people, but some times I get tired of it and eventually write them off. I sit back and watch them screw up there lives and do nothing about it. We are not supposed to do any of this. We are called to love all people! We are called to live just as Jesus did. He did not sit back and watch people mess up there already broken lives or criticize there every wrong move. He went to them. He met them where they were. He showed them love and grace and gave them mercy and forgiveness.
He didn't just come to the Samaritan woman, He also came to me in all of my self-righteousness. Just a few chapters earlier, John 1:14 says "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." Jesus came to all of us. He walked this earth to restore our relationships with our maker. I am so broken which makes my relationship with God broken.
Flipping to John 17 I saw that Jesus prayed for us before He was arrested and crucified. John 17:20-26 says
"My prayer is not for them* alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
"Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."
We are meant to be reconciled to God through Jesus and also to each other. We are meant to be a body of believers that reaches out to this hurting world, meet them where they are, and show them the love of Christ. My prayer is that I stop judging and disregarding the hurting. Jesus came for me and He also came for them. He came for each and every one of us. I pray I can show love to this beautiful neighborhood where God has sent me, spread that love of Jesus.
*them refers to Jesus' disciples
One story that sticks out to me in particular is the story of Jesus and the woman at the well. Her story starts in John 4:4. I love how Jesus just goes up to her even though she is a Samaritan woman, and not only was she a Samaritan, she had been married several times and was with another man that was not her husband. Jesus knew all of this and still asked her for some water! He did not care what she had done in the past or what she was currently doing. She had sinned and He still met her where she was, He loved her. All of us as humans have differences. We are all unique. We all have different backgrounds. We have different sins, but we all have sinned. They may be different, but they are all sin.
Some of us might look at the woman at the well and be like, "Look at that woman! She has had five husbands and is now with some other man! We are not as bad as her." I know I have felt that way. I have been that person who looks down on others who fall into sin after sin and don't seem to care. My heart breaks for these people, but some times I get tired of it and eventually write them off. I sit back and watch them screw up there lives and do nothing about it. We are not supposed to do any of this. We are called to love all people! We are called to live just as Jesus did. He did not sit back and watch people mess up there already broken lives or criticize there every wrong move. He went to them. He met them where they were. He showed them love and grace and gave them mercy and forgiveness.
He didn't just come to the Samaritan woman, He also came to me in all of my self-righteousness. Just a few chapters earlier, John 1:14 says "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." Jesus came to all of us. He walked this earth to restore our relationships with our maker. I am so broken which makes my relationship with God broken.
Flipping to John 17 I saw that Jesus prayed for us before He was arrested and crucified. John 17:20-26 says
"My prayer is not for them* alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
"Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."
We are meant to be reconciled to God through Jesus and also to each other. We are meant to be a body of believers that reaches out to this hurting world, meet them where they are, and show them the love of Christ. My prayer is that I stop judging and disregarding the hurting. Jesus came for me and He also came for them. He came for each and every one of us. I pray I can show love to this beautiful neighborhood where God has sent me, spread that love of Jesus.
*them refers to Jesus' disciples
Monday, January 4, 2010
The beginning of a blog and love
Blog. It has become so foreign to me to pull thoughts, ideas, and feelings out of my head and put them into writing. Lately God has been in the business of redeeming things in my life. I guess one of the reasons for setting out on this adventure is to trust Him with that old part of my life, to bring it back and dust it off. In the last few years I have put myself into the rut of not thinking. I think in mini blogs all day long, but nothing like I used to, really taking a step back and looking at my life and all that surrounds it, most importantly how God has been growing me. My dearest roommate has told me several times to start a blog. I doubted I would be able to since I am a talker by nature, not a writer. I have crappy grammar and punctuation at times and my spelling is atrocious. Oh well, I am believing God for the ability to let Him speak into my life through writing and not limiting myself to having conversations with others since I may not always have others to talk to. Now I venture into writing and thinking and talking to God more. This is a bit scary, not gonna lie.
So this is called love to the neighborhood. This is my heart and the way I want to live my life, to bring Jesus and His amazing love into the neighborhood. I am not the best lover of others but I'm growing and, honestly, that is all I want to do. Why have the love of Christ in your heart and not give it away? I do not even think it is a question of why, but how! Christ's love is so life changing and powerful that once it has hit one's heart it cannot be contained in that person, instead it flows out so much so that it becomes apparent to those around and begins to wash over them as we carryout the incarnate love of Jesus by serving and truly caring, among other things.
In this blog I pray that I may be able to explore that amazing love of Jesus, that love that extends to every person that dwells on this beautiful earth. Also, how I interact and react to this love and how it plays out in my life as I venture into my neighborhood to better share it with those who I love already, those who I am learning to love, and those who I really do not love.
So this is called love to the neighborhood. This is my heart and the way I want to live my life, to bring Jesus and His amazing love into the neighborhood. I am not the best lover of others but I'm growing and, honestly, that is all I want to do. Why have the love of Christ in your heart and not give it away? I do not even think it is a question of why, but how! Christ's love is so life changing and powerful that once it has hit one's heart it cannot be contained in that person, instead it flows out so much so that it becomes apparent to those around and begins to wash over them as we carryout the incarnate love of Jesus by serving and truly caring, among other things.
In this blog I pray that I may be able to explore that amazing love of Jesus, that love that extends to every person that dwells on this beautiful earth. Also, how I interact and react to this love and how it plays out in my life as I venture into my neighborhood to better share it with those who I love already, those who I am learning to love, and those who I really do not love.
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