3/15/2011
Erika Is Love, With Practice!
Love and everything about it has been heavy on my heart lately. I have dug and pondered and sought and aspired to grow to be the LOVE that God has called me to be.
“Love the Lord your God will all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind” First!
“Love your neighbor as yourself” Second!
Scripture is very clear. These commands are mentioned more than once to be sure they are heard, heard correctly, and they leave no room for misinterpretation.
Until recently I thought ‘loving God’ was the easy part. UNTIL…..
Upside the head I was smacked again. If I do not love my neighbor then I do not love God.
{If anyone boasts, "I love God," and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won't love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can't see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You've got to love both. 1 John 4:20-21 (The Message)}
God’s voice is BOOMING at me – “ERIKA, LOVE”.
All my objections are overruled.
“But they, …” my objection is immediately interrupted before I can even offer it.
“SHHHHH! You let Me deal with that – YOU just LOVE”
Defining ‘neighbor’ was already covered. Defining ‘love’ was also covered.
There is no loop hole.
My neighbor is everyone else on the planet.
And love?
{Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:8 (NIV)
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them 1 John 4:16(NIV)}
The Bible is equally clear as to what love looks like. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
A word association ‘game’ asked me to turn to that scripture and substitute the word Jesus every place it said love (Jesus is God in the flesh and God IS love). That was easy. Those were fluffy words that made me feel all warm and fuzzy. I was on the receiving end. My faults, my sins, my mistakes were not part of the equation. I was loved because:
“Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind… Jesus protects…..Jesus never fails.”
I liked that. I loved that.
{This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 1 John 4:17(NIV)}
No grey area there. I am to be like Jesus. I am to love LIKE JESUS.
“Love is always about the person giving the love, not the receiver”, Pastor Cord Bear. “Stop justifying not loving others because they don’t deserve it; you don’t deserve God’s love, but you have it! They deserve to be loved because they are God’s children.”
Umm, ok – OUCH!
Let me spell out this circle. God never fails. God is love. Love never fails. Love is God.
If I am to live as God commands me to live, I am to BE love. If I AM love, then I will never fail.
So what should I look like as the ‘giver’, AS love?
1 Corinthians 13:3-10 where Erika is Love (The Message Version):
If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.
(Erika) never gives up.
(Erika) cares more for others than for (her) self.
(Erika) doesn't want what (she) doesn't have.
(Erika) doesn't strut,
(Erika) Doesn't have a swelled head,
(Erika) Doesn't force (her)self on others,
(Erika) Isn't always "me first,"
(Erika) Doesn't fly off the handle,
(Erika) Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
(Erika) Doesn't revel when others grovel,
(Erika)Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
(Erika)Puts up with anything,
(Erika)Trusts God always,
(Erika)Always looks for the best,
(Erika)Never looks back,
(Erika) keeps going to the end.
(Therefore, Erika) never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
I have a LOT of practicing to do.
{God’s Love and Ours: Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. 1 John 4:7-21 (NIV)}
1 Corinthians 10:31 (KJV) …whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God!
Be blessed and know that Jesus ADORES you! And so do I!
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