I doubt mankind will reveal but a few who move fully into the love God has in mind. I regard myself as possessing but a speck of it. Any amount I have is not from myself but is from Himself; the Holy Spirit. It is up to me (us) to allow the Holy Spirit to reside within that He might bear His fruit without.
That sap and fruit which comes from we trees are to be the traits of God Himself; love, joy, peace, etc. What is the opposite of love? If we don’t have love what will come from our character? Hate? No. Fear. One without God cannot love and, simultaneously, cannot be confident. Such a one will be led to skittish, pessimistic, uncertain conclusions. Those moments in the church or in the family or in the business when a Christian is afraid simply signals love is absent. We tend to believe love means we are good to people; and that surely is part of it. But love means we are not fearful of God, others, and ourselves.
Too many Christian parents speak fear while they serve dinner to their families. “I don’t know what this world’s coming to!” Or, “I don’t know how much longer we can endure church life.” This talk does not come from love and it sows fear.
When God calls us to love one another He isn’t merely asking us to be good to each other. He is also asking us to live unafraid while together we face some very intimidating, Goliath-like, situations.
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Fear versus love: State law will punish me if I abuse my wife. Because I love my wife, I will seek to do nothing but bless, encourage and cherish her. Fear and legalism stifle relational living. Legalism in church and other aspects of life are counter to LOVING God and LOVING people. Love brings hope to a troubled world and joy to a chaotic congregation. Perfect love casts out fear and by its very nature is grace-filled and God-powered.
I needed to read this. I hope we can all put this real love, this "love that drives out all fear" (1 Jn. 4:18) into practice more.
'Going UnNoticed'
Okay so on one of my marathon trining runs we did a trail run that was called 'bear canyon' I'm writing this because on the run we past a "family of bears"
First off if I was told this I would have never believed it; but as there is a photographer there for almost all of our long runs, I was looking through the photos and saw a picture of all of us runners going right past these "bears." They weren't hidden, below us or even above us where we had to say "hey where are they agian" they were in plain sight and you can stand right next to them, and yet I ran right past them with out even releazing they were there. I know I ran right past them as I'm in a few photos going right past them.
Anywho this got me thinking what if they were real bears man would I have been a goner. Here I am not being aware of my surrondings and just too busy being focused on getting to my distanation, without enjoying or looking at what is being placed before me and around me. It's kinda like how we are all in with life, we are so busy on getting to our distanation that we run right past oppurtnuties because it is something we're not looking for.
Everyday there are things around us that wedo not noticed because one it wasn't pointed out to us, we weren't looking for it intintionally, and because we simpily ignore it. We are so focused on finshing "first" just so we can sut back and say yeah I did that and then complain.
It's also kinds what we do with God. Even though I'm a person struggling with my faith and belief in him it doesn't change the fact that God constantly places blessing and oppertunites in front of us and we ignore them because it is not given to us directly or simply because it is not what we are looking for. Based on this experince I now relieazed I need to slow down in life and stop trying to get to the finsih line as soon as I can because by doing this I'll miss out on the blessings around me which will end up in missed oppurtunities and awsome blessings.
I think we all need to slow down a bit, open up our eyes to whats around us because if we keep going on a path of just wanting to finish and looking for things and blessinings that are fit to our asking we are going to miss out on great things and were eventually going to run into danger without even realizing it; and if it gets bad enough we may not even know how to get out of it, and well then be left lost and alone.
So let us all slow down a bit and if an oppurtunity comes up take it because it may be someting that God has planned for you that may be greater than you releaze, even if it is not something you intianially wanted because in the end it may be the greatest thing in life that you have ever comes across. I know for I fact that I myself need to start doing what I speak of.
Amen!! Living by your last line would allow many of us to accomplish some amazing things through Christ! "He is also asking us to live unafraid while together we face some very intimidating, Goliath-like, situations."
Love you friend!
I have long thought that fear is one of the greatest enemies of the kingdom of God. Fear keeps us from revealing our true selves to God and each other. Fear keeps us hiding in the garden like Adam and Eve from a God who wants to bless us.
I believe this is why confession of sin is so crucial to the lives of us believers. When we confess our sins, one to another, we have nothing left to hide! We are who we are and are forgiven by grace, not by our ability to cover up our sinful selves.
Fear keeps us from finding and seeking out the real spiritual healing that we all need. Oh that we could just let go of being afraid. The world would change.
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