The Fruit of the Spirit: LOVE!

He gives me love, love, love, love, crazy love!


This week has been absolutely AMAZING! I’ve been eating well, exercising, in the Word, great podcasts, in a new bible study, and I broke free of something that I didn’t even realize was holding me in bondage! WOW! I feel like I had this kind of cancer like thing in my life, holding me back, literally killing me, and I was released from it! THANK YOU JESUS! I actually can’t wait to share it, but I have to wait until God gives me the “go-ahead”.

I am doing a study on the fruit of the spirit (Gal 5:22-23) and I want to skip through the daisies, jump around with my arms in the air thanking Him over and over! I’ve been “misty” everyday because of His overwhelming goodness for me! I keep thinking WOW! He’s not kidding in John 8:36!

These are the scriptures I’ve been studying this week that have been ROCKING MY WORLD!

1 John 4:7-16      1 John 2:1-6      1 John 3:15-23      John 21:15-19

Matt 10:39,42             Gen 3:15            1 Cor 13:1-13

All of these passages are amazing, there are certain ones that God just POPPED off the page at me. Some to bring me to my knees in sorrow and repenetance and some that made me LEAP for joy!

1 John 4:7-16.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

Now you might think this one would have made me leap for joy, but it didn’t. It hit my heart like a freight train. How many times have I not showed love in doing something that I was supposed to be doing in love, but I did out of guilt and obligation which just made me completely ugly! I would get mad and “crank off” and people probably just didn’t want to deal with me, for all the “good” I did, I undid it time 10,000 with my stupid fits of anger and hurt. Ugh! I will tell you, working on me, I have learned that it is not a blessing when you do something you are not called to do (and for the record, sometimes we have to do things we may not like at the time but that God builds our foundation to make us more like Him, and He WILL bring us joy in that serving!). I have had times in the last couple weeks where I have had to say “no, thank you, please find someone else” it was hard, I grew up covered in a lot of guilt, but in freedom, there is no guilt. There is no condemnation in Christ. And if I am tired from doing the things He has called SOMEONE ELSE to do, I won’t have the strength to do the things He has for me to do.

I want to live every day living in His love, and LIVING HIS LOVE!

WOW! What a lesson!

1 John 2:1-6

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

3 We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. 4 Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. 5 But if anyone obeys his word, love for God[a] is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.

The fact that Jesus would be an advocate for me (I really wanted to make sure I understood the word advocate so I looked it up – I will let you do that for yourself so you can learn too!) blows me away! And for a long time, God has been working on me with obedience, and there are times I have rocked it out, and times when I have fell flat on my face (a lot of these times have been when I am doing something “good” but not necessarily “good for me” and then am a jerk).

1 John 3:15-23

15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.

This one is nuts, back to the whole acting like a jerk thing. I MUST do what pleases God and I WILL have great joy! I have to say that doing what God called me to is absolutely amazing, serving with an amazing smile and that doesn’t mean it’s always easy, when He breaks my heart for people who are hurting, but the best part is that it sets my heart on fire to change the world for love. To be the change in the world that I want to see (Ghandi). This verse makes me want to stay even more connected to Him, so that I can live in His will, that when I ask for something He will grant it because it is what He wants, and my heart is just obedient!

Matt 10:39,42

39 Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
42 And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”

My life may look different to a lot of people, but that’s ok with me. I hope that people see love and joy and PEACE (for the first time in my life! REAL PEACE HALLELUJAH!!) and want what I have instead of this craziness that people think they want. Nothing can satisfy like a life lived in Christ!

1 Cor 13:1-13

If I speak in the tongues 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.

WOW! Without love I am nothing. Without truly accepting His love, I am nothing! Well no wonder I had such low self worth, thought I was ugly, I was carrying around this hurt, shame, darkness that I thought was “normal”, let me tell you, nothing about hurt, shame, and darkness is normal, one of my favorite verse is John 1:5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. I was not made to live in darkness, I just wasn’t! God loves me! And He has given me such an incredible gift! FREEDOM!!! Now that I know, and BELIEVE that He loves me, I know that I am loved, that I am worthy, I am worthy of love (DO YOU HEAR ME????? I believe that now!!!), and I am chosen!

Shew! It’s been a big week! I don’t even know how to end this! I love You Jesus! Thank You God for sunshine, for all that You’ve done in my life. I will love You forever!

Sending love!

Comments

Kristin said…
Such wisdom here...thank you for sharing and inspiring!!