All You Need Is Love

October 31, 2009 at 6:00 am (Love)

1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous, it does not brag, and it is not proud. Love is not rude, is not selfish, and does not get upset with others. Love does not count up wrongs that have been done. Love takes no pleasure in evil but rejoices over the truth. Love patiently accepts all things. It always trusts, always hopes, and always endures. Love never ends. NCV

1 John 4:8
God is love. NCV

Genesis 1:26
Let Us make man in Our image NKJV

For me, when I see these verses side by side, it is a new revelation of how Good God actually is.

I know He loves me, but love without action is nothing, and here I get to see not only what alive love is, nor only that God is full of love, but that He IS love.

He is patient, He is kind….. He does not count up wrongs… He always trusts, always hopes, always endures…


Subsequently, we are made in God’s image.

We are made to reflect love.

God love.

To be a christian means to live as a little Christ.

We’re not called to act patient and kind on occasions, we were created to reflect God, to be love, therefore, to BE patient, to BE kind, to NOT BE jealous … They are meant to be part of who we are.

Deuteronomy 7:9
So know that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God. He will keep his agreement of love for a thousand lifetimes for people who love him and obey his commands.

On the other side. With God’s love, too often I find myself – despite knowing that God loves me – feeling compelled to keep His commands in order to get to His perfect love. But we are called to work from His love, not to it. In this verse I see it as no accident that love is placed before obeying His commands.

God is love, and His desire is to pour it into our lives.                                                                                                                  Our responsibility is to accept it, and to use it.

Stay Strong


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Cast Away

October 24, 2009 at 6:00 am (Stress)

I was spending time with the one and only Timmy G today and he led me to this verse.

1 Peter 5:7
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. NIV

It’s one that many of us have heard before, however, it is The Amplified Bible that makes it so much clearer and more confronting.

1 Peter 5:7
Casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him. for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully. AMP

The reason for giving God all our anxieties is that he cares for us. He is the Lord of our lives, He is in charge, He is our loving ruler who cares for us.

And we give him our anxieties because He cares about us too. Not just in the way we care about our friends, or care about our pets, or care about our hobbies, though they all matter, God’s care about us is so much deeper, stronger, and truer.

God cares for us. Like a father cares for his son.                              Deuteronomy 1:31

And God cares about us like a husband cares about his wife. Ephesians 5:25

And so we know we can trust Him with our problems.

The Amplified also reveals the extent to which we cast our anxieties.

We give him all our care, all our concerns, all our worries.

Once

and

for

all.

We give God our life and trust Him to deal with it.

Too often I find myself repenting and then continuing to condemn myself. Or too often I put my trust in God only to stir myself into fretting moments later. When we give our cares to God its a one way street. We give it all to Him, never to take it back. Such is the power of the Cross.

Hebrews 10:9-10
Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. NIV

Jesus Christ walked this Earth so that not only would our sin be gone forever, but so that our stresses and our burdens would be in God’s hands once and for all. So that we may truly live in the blessed Peace of God.

Cast your cares onto God, once and for all, and let him take control of them out of his never ending love for you.

Stay Strong.

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The Best Book Around

October 17, 2009 at 11:55 pm (Bible)

Jeremiah 6:8
Take warning, O Jerusalem, or I will turn away from you
and make your land desolate so no one can live in it. NIV

As I read this, the two words “take warning” stopped me.

It is the whole purpose for reading the bible.

We are to take warning of the consequences of sin, we are to take note of God’s perfect and pleasing path that He has set out for us.

The Amplified Bible says it this way,

Jeremiah 6:8
Be corrected, reformed, instructed, and warned, O Jerusalem,
lest I be alienated and parted from you, lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land. AMP

For whenever I feel separated or parted from God, I need to get into his Word. For whenever I feel like I need more in life, or that I’m missing God, then I need to get into his Word.

I need to study his good, old way and let it correct, change, reform, instruct, help, challenge and love me.

2 Timothy 3:16-17
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. NIV

Each word of the Bible is God-breathed, it has His Spirit flowing through it, therefore we can expect God to reveal himself to us each time we journey into the Bible. God will show himself as our Father, our Teacher, our Comforter.

Also, if each Word of God is God-breathed then we can expect to find God in it, that is, we can expect to find God’s peace when we are troubled, God’s joy when we are downhearted, God’s love when we feel condemned and God’s salvation when we are being persecuted.

This passage from 2 Timothy finishes by saying we may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

There is a direct link between reading God’s Word, and then living out God’s Word, otherwise it is like looking in a mirror and then immediately forgetting what we look like.

If we are to be believers in God we must run to his Word.

If we are to be disciples of God we must live out his Word.

Stay Strong.


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