In Malaysia our team discovered that we all have struggles with receiving love, especially from one another. This may be due to past hurts with relationships, not trusting one another due to our pasts, or not loving others because we did not love ourselves. Whatever the reason, we were all struggling. We were not becoming unified, even though we were functioning well as a team, we wanted to go deeper.
A lot of the discovery of this revelation was because of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was calling us to go deeper and to really love one another. The only way we could think of doing this was thinking about how to really love one another. We thought about ways in the Bible that God talks about love and how we are to love one another. We needed to commit to doing this.
Commitment.
Oh. That is a strong word.
Why are we committing to loving one another?
Well, other than the Holy Spirit telling us to love each other, we want to see a change. We want this to be a start in how we treat and love those that we come into contact with. We want the relationships in our lives to be strong and Christ-centered.
We want community to be different.
We want to see and treat everyone with how heaven sees them.
We want to also see ourselves how heaven sees us.
To do this, we started by making vows to one another. We hope that through this time in our lives, living out our commitments to one another, that we will be able to change how the church is at home. To encourage the Body to loving each other more, being more Christ-like.
This is a hard commitment, but we are following the Spirit and what He is leading us into.
With this all being said, we all wrote vows to one another and read them to each other. It was a tearful event and filled with so much love and promises. We are calling each other into greatness.
So without further ado, here is the vow that I committed to my teammates:
My Dearest Ascend the Hill Brothers and Sisters,
I vow to love you, as the individuals that God created each one of you to uniquely be, and as a whole, as the Body that God brought us all together to be. I vow to reach out and to love you the way that the Father loves the Church, even if that means throwing down my pride and hurt in order to love you. I will put your own needs and cares before my own.
I vow to forgive you when I am hurt by your actions or when I am not feeling loved. I will come forward and let you know when I am hurt so that you can have the opportunity to acknowledge your actions and my feelings.
I vow to not put past relationships and my past understanding of love on top of who you are so that you are not limited in receiving love from me or for me receiving love from you.
I will love you when you are being unlovable.
I choose to love you.
I vow to give you my heart and to let you love me.
This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another. We must not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and killed his brother. And why did he kill him? Because Cain had been doing what was evil, and his brother had been doing what was righteous. So don’t be surprised, dear brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.
If we love our Christian brothers and sisters, it proves that we have passed from death to life. But a person who has no love is still dead. Anyone who hates another brother or sister is really a murderer at heart. And you know that murderers don’t have eternal life within them.
We know what real love is because Jesus gave up His life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person?
Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. Our actions will show that we belong to the Truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God. Even if we feel guilty, God is greater that our feelings, and He knows everything.
Dear friends, if we don’t feel guilty, we can come to God with bold confidence. And we will receive from Him whatever we ask because we obey Him and do the things that please Him.
And this is His commandment: We must believe in the Name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. Those who obey God’s commandments remain in fellowship with Him, and He with them. And we know He lives in us because the Spirit He gave us lives in us.
1 John 3:11-24
I vow to give up my life for you because Jesus gave up His life for us.
Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
God showed how much He loved us by sending His one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and His love is brought to full expression in us.
And God has given us His Spirit as proof that we live in Him and He in us. Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in His love.
God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face Him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.
Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced His perfect love. We love each other because He loved us first.
If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, Whom we cannot see? And He has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their Christian brothers and sisters.
1 John 4:7-21
I vow to love you because God’s love will be brought to full expression in us, because God lives in us.
I vow to love you the way that you need to be loved and in your time of need, whenever that may be. Whether that is through a walk along the river where I can listen to you, sharing the last piece of chocolate with you because I know how much you enjoy it, letting you lean your tired head on my shoulder as we sit in the back of a cramped vehicle, writing you an encouraging letter or speaking life to you, or by washing your dishes so that you can rest. However, I will walk alongside you and speak love to you and call you to be walking in love as well, to call you to a higher standard of yourself.
I vow to receive love from you as you receive love from me.
As we walk in love, viewing each other the same way Heaven looks at us, I vow to love you, always and forever.
Love your sister,
Kaitlyn Michele
