Hi Readers!
So, the topic of LOVE has come up a lot lately for me so I decided to write about it. In this post, I have included a few excerpts from various sources pertaining to love. In the article, it says that real love is hard. Love is sometimes messy, it sometimes hurts (physically and/or emotionally), it sometimes is not reciprocated. No matter what though, we don’t love someone for ourselves, we love them because that is what God has called us to.
We can go out to serve the needy, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to rescue orphans and widows, etc., but if we do this without love, then it is for naught. On our own we can do no great thing, but with God’s love living in us and pouring out of us we can do great things! Don’t misinterpret what I am trying to say here though… God wants to use us wherever we are. We can do all of those things aforementioned right where we are, but sometimes God calls us to other places and out of our comfort zones so that we can be stripped of ourselves.
Love is so much more than some random, euphoric feeling. And real love isn’t always fluffy, cute, and cuddly. More often than not, real love has its sleeves rolled up, dirt and grime smeared on its arms, and sweat dripping down its forehead. Real love asks us to do hard things–to forgive one another, to support each other’s dreams, to comfort in times of grief, or to care for family. Real love isn’t easy–and it’s nothing like the wedding day–but it’s far more meaningful and wonderful.
I recently came across this wonderful quote: “No one falls in love by choice, it is by chance. No one stays in love by chance, it is by work. And no one falls out of love by chance, it is by choice.”
– From “Real Love Is A Choice.” To see the full article, please visit http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-adam-smith/real-love-is-a-choice_b_6039412.html
Tangent: Think about this for a minute… are you more likely to change something is you are comfortable or uncomfortable? Uncomfortable, right? Why is that? Because we don’t like whatever is going on. For example, one doesn’t really think about losing weight until their clothes become too tight or it is harder to breathe when ascending a flight of stairs.
Concentrating back on love: If you want to experience love, then you have to be willing to be vulnerable. You have to let down the walls built up around your heart. You have to allow others in. Sometimes you might get hurt, but know that God can heal all your hurts and can make us new again (2 Corinthians 5:17).
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
Personal story here: I was emotionally healed of some things at training camp. When I let God have my past hurts, He took them and healed my heart. In order to grow, you have to be willing to do something different. You have to be willing to let go and let God do whatever He wants. A phrase that Dr. Ron Walborn asked us to say/pray is this: “Lord, do anything You need to do in me, so that You can do everything You want to do through me.”
The greatest expression of love is the example of Jesus though. He bled and died for me (you) so that I (you) might be able to have life eternal with him and the Father.
John 15:12-17
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants,[a] for the servant[b] does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
For more on love from the Word check out 1 Corinthians 13.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13&version=ESV
So, if you’ve read this far then I suspect that you want to be a part of sharing the love of God. I am still a long ways off financially from being able to GO INTO ALL THE WORLD. I prayerfully ask that you consider partnering with me financially to go out to other parts of the world to share God’s love. There are several countries that I am signed up to visit that have never heard of the love that God so desperately wants to lavish on them. I am willing and able to go out to these dark parts of the world and share God’s love with them. Please help send me!
Keep Lookin’ Up,
Misha
