The Lord is teaching me lessons in love this season.
He's in the process of showing me what it really looks like in its pure and holy form, how to use it, and how to love others well – the way He loves.
It's funny because I thought love was something I was really good at before the World Race. I thought I had a firm grip on what it is and how to express it to others, but the Lord has been revealing to me (ever so gently) that I've only scratched the surface of its true meaning in my 23 years of life. And I'm learning that only the Father can love us in a truly blameless, unconditional way at ALL times.
He loves us fiercely, compassionately, and unconditionally, even during the times we feel we deserve it the least.
HE. LOVES. US.
He's been pursuing us throughout our whole lives, whether we've realized it or not.
And He still does, every single day, with a love that is as strong as death, as fierce as the grave, and unable to be quenched! [Song of Solomon 8:6-7]
He's been showing me that love in its truest form involves SACRIFICE (Jesus being the ultimate example), and even though that makes it difficult sometimes, the fruit that comes from perseverance is far greater than anything we could ever ask for or imagine!
Something specific He's been speaking to my spirit recently is that He's taking me around the world, for a time, to teach me how to love all kinds of different people. And in doing that, He is showing me how to love all of my (already) loved ones WELL. How to love them in holiness, with a pure heart, and with the same intensity and passion that He does; with a heart that is increasingly more similar to Jesus' with each passing day. Because THAT is my inheritance; that is OUR inheritance through our Savior Jesus and the Spirit He has so graciously given us.
Each time Jesus heals or performs a miracle, He tells the one who's been healed to step out in faith and walk in their new found freedom.
He tells us to do the same.
We are no longer bound to sin, or to a twisted or contorted view of what love really is. So step out in faith and walk in the inheritance that YOU HAVE THE MIND OF CHRIST, and therefore, you also have the LOVE of Christ living inside of you through His Spirit, enabling you to love others the way He does!
And that kind of love, HIS love, bears all things.
It believes all things.
It hopes all things.
It endures all things.
And it NEVER EVER ends.
