It’s fascinating how the Lord is breaking all expectations. One thing about the World Race that we were told from the beginning is that the only thing you can expect is the unexpected. I was trying to come into the Race with very few expectations, and more expectations for myself and how I would grow, but not about the countries we were going to. However, I was putting expectations on things that I didn’t even realize until I was presented with something different.
I expected our ministry host to be somewhat of a “boss” role, telling us what to do and all. Our ministry host here (cannot share names due to privacy) has quickly become a great friend. She is in her late twenties, and but has wisdom to share and loves all the girls she works with. She jokes around with us, teaches us how to make traditional Indian food, and chats about Indian culture.
Even my idea of what “ministry” was has changed. Ministry can be evangelism and church outreach and all of that, but it goes so much farther than that. It is playing with little girls and making them feel special. It is smiling to people on the street. It is playing volleyball with the employees of the church we are staying in. “Ministry” doesn’t have to look a certain way or even be all about God or Christianity, but can simply come down to loving people the way that God loves us – unconditionally.
I never cease to be amazed with God. As I study His word and pray and write these blogs, God speaks to me in such an incredible way. I often sit down with no purpose, no idea what to write on, and then the Lord just speaks to me and sets me on a path to show me His vastness.
“From God’s other known attributes, we may learn much about His love. We can know, for instance, that because God is self-existent, His love had no beginning; because He is eternal, His love can have no end; because He is infinite, it has no limit; because He is holy, it is the quintessence of all spotless purity; because He is immense, His love is an incomprehensibly vast, bottomless, shoreless sea before which we knee in joyful silence and from which the loftiest eloquence retreats confused and abashed.”
Love is such a massive theme in the Bible. God’s love for all, our brotherly love for each other as believers, and love for our neighbors, enemies, and unbelievers.
It is our proof of discipleship. “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” – John 13:35
Christ’ love is the standard for our love. “This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.” – John 15:12
It is sincere. “Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good.” – Romans 12:9
It is abounding and ever growing. “And may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all men, just as we also do for you” – 1 Thessalonians 3:12
It is unchangeable “Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” – John 13:1
It is divine. “Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you; abide in my love.” – John 15:9
It is inseparable. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” – Romans 8:35
It is sacrificial. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:8
It is undeserved. “See how great a love, the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are.” – 1 John 3:1
It must be at the center of everything we do “If it speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophey and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith; so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. – 1 Corinthians 13:1-2
The entirety of 1 Corinthians 13 lays out love for us. It is patient, kind, not jealous, not arrogant, not self seeking, rejoices in truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. The love of the Lord is such an amazing gift, and is one we could never deserve or earn. God loves us because we are His children. Nothing we could ever do could separate us from that, no matter how much we sin or reject Him, He will never stop loving us. His love will never diminish, never waver, never depend on what we do, never change, and never fail or end. His love brings comfort, peace, and steadiness when all of life is insane and constantly changing.
“The love of God is one of the great realities of the universe, a pillar upon which the hope of the world rests. But it is a personal, intimate things, too. God does not love populations, He loves people. He loves not masses, but men. He loves us all with a mighty love that has no beginning and can have no end.”
– A.W. Tozer
