Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

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This afternoon I fell asleep and had a dream that I was on my face, speaking in tongues, deep in the Spirit.  My hands were stretched out before me and I was asking God what I should do.  He said, “worship and love”.  

This may sound simple, but I feel like these words somehow represent my specific calling.  I am just beginning to understand what these words mean, but I have had multiple prophetic people tell me that I am a “worshiper” and that I have a “special gift of love”.

                            
 
Worship is what I want to inspire in the nations, but I don’t worship to see other people worship.  I worship because He is WORTHY of worship, I worship because there is nothing else I can do when I get a small glimpse of who He really is, I worship because my heart overflows with love and desire for Him and that is the only reasonable response.  When I think of worship I always think of the word overflow.  In my most intense moments of worship it feels like my desire for my God gushes like a mighty river destroying and tearing down everything in the way.  It sweeps it away with a force so strong nothing can withstand it.  That’s my rudimentary understanding of worship.

Having a “special gift of love” sounds nice, until you really stop to think about what love is.  Love is hard.  I often hear God telling me that my life will be about laying my life down for others.  And as I have grown in discernment and have become more aware of others’ sin, love has gotten harder.  I easily enjoy people, but enjoyment is not love.  I easily have deep care and concern for people, no matter how much or little I know them.  But that’s just the very beginning of love.  Usually, I am willing to make sacrifices for people and to be there for them when they need a friend no matter when or how hard.  But is that love?  

I think these things are all part of love, and I know I can receive wisdom on this in 1 Corinthians 13.  But I think the kind of love He is calling me to is the 1 John 3:16 kind.  By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.  This looks like submitting to others when I don’t want to, forgiving without being asked for forgiveness, and refusing to be offended because I realize I am nothing, along with dozens of other things that haven’t occurred to me yet.  Loving people I minister to who don’t reciprocate the same degree of love towards me is easy.  Loving friends and family who I feel like should reciprocate the same degree of love towards me is much, much harder.  

 
This is the beginning of the kind of love God is calling me to; I don’t understand it and sometimes I don’t want it.  I have some deep scars where I have been rejected and every time we love we risk rejection.  And…odds are, my love will be rejected a lot.  His was – and is.  I think the key to all of this is receiving all of my love and affirmation from my Father and Husband – and He’s taking me there, wooing me in, taking me deeper into Him to look more like Him and experience the love that He has within Himself.  Abiding in love is abiding in God.  

The thing that gets me revved up about this is that I know something happens to an environment whenever something is done with pure love as the motive.  Something happens in the spiritual realm and the simplest hidden tasks, the most ordinary words or smile suddenly transforms the place and people can’t help but notice.  Maybe they get a picture of that whisper they’ve been hearing all along that they’re loved more than they’ve ever known.  I don’t know.  But something happens.