When God created the earth and everything in it there was only one thing he said was not good: the fact that man was alone. So he in turn created woman - the help meet, the easer - to help man do that which God has called him to do. Looking at the roll of a woman and the roll as a believer period- the biggest ingredient is love. Love is the driving force that pushes everything I believe in. The very nature of God is love therefore if love is the main ingredient, God is the main ingredient. It was God's love for man which caused him to create woman for him. It was God's love for mankind which caused him to send his only son to die for our wicked ways, and he commands us to love one another.
Ok, but what exactly is love? What does it look like? We all have so many different ideas of what love is or should be like that when it is in our face we can't see it. Love is not a feeling. It's an action. Its something that you do. This is love according to the amplified version of 1 Corinthians 13:
4Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily. 5It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God's love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong]. 6It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. 7Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening]. 8Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end].
I was having a conversation with a friend about what love was and she said something that sounded so profound. She said love is an act of faith. When you think about it... I guess she's right. Jesus had enough faith to die for a wicked group of sinners like us, because he knew [had the faith] to understand that his act of love would in turn cause his people to love him in return. He believed that his work would not be in vain and the ones he loved would receive him and love him. To love a husband, or love a wife is an act of faith. You have faith that they are going to remain faithful to the commitment made between you, them, and God, before a congregation of witnesses.
Christ is the bridegroom and we, the church. are the bride. If marriage isn't even about us, yet is a ministry all by itself. Whatever marriage I enter into is going to reflect my relationship and my walk. The truth is the church dogged Christ out and he did have to endure some pretty hurtful things, but he loved them in spite of. He still claimed them in spite of. He still laid down his life in spite of. He had the faith to see that they would eventually turn around. He knew these people he was dying for would eventually get this love thing right.
Love is not so much about a feeling. Love is a verb - its an action word. Love causes you to do things, without expectation of receiving something in return. Christ loved and received great persecutions. I'm really trying to learn this love thing. I want to do it the right way. I want to love for real - the way God does...
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
12.01.2009
9.17.2009
And The Walls Come Crashing Down...
Love.
It happens to be the one thing we are supposed to posses, if we have nothing else. We were created in the image and likeness of God, and God's very nature is love. So we are to be love. Jesus himself said the first commandment is to love the Lord, God, with all our heart all our mind and all our soul AND to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Here in lies the dilemma most of us have - we do not love ourselves.
Many times I sit back and I think about this whole loving idea of loving yourself, and I wonder why its so easy for some and harder for others. Where did it all go wrong? What happened in my childhood that got me all twisted in my perception of what love is supposed to be? Why is it that even with the perfect example of what love is, why does it not take root in my mind that it is also for me?
Maybe its because in my short 23 years of life (well in a few more days it will be anyway) I have managed to build up walls and detach myself from feeling certain things. Many around me do not understand and they say, "wow you are so chill, I wish I could be more like you." Funny how the grass always seems to be greener on the other side. If they really understood that this nonchalantness (is that even a word?) that I possess is only from years of pain. When you expect people to love you the way you WANT them to love you and you experience broken promise after broken promise, piled on top of rape and molestation, there is a sort of emotional numbness that takes over - at least that's how it was for me.
At a certain point I was so through with trying to deal with this thing, I just pushed it to the back of my mind. There were more important things to concern myself with, I had no time for irrelevant things like how I felt. All the while searching for love. It is a part of my genetic make-up. I am a child of God who IS love and I'm supposed to look just like him, so when the world was busy stripping me and beating me to the point where I had lost my identity, the walls went up and the mask went on.
People are so funny. We can smile and go through the motions of life and no one would ever know anything was wrong. All the while be dying on the inside, slowly. Each day another piece whithers away. The crazy thing is even Christians go through this. Why? A lack of complete submission to God. To serve and obey God is a choice. This is why we were created with free will. Many will give their body to God, and even their mind, but when it comes to the heart, we don't want to give that to God. To give him our heart means we have to let him deal with those things that we have blocked off and guarded away in the deep chest of emotional, whatever.
Last night I had to make a choice. I could continue down the path I was going expecting things to change (insanity) OR I could choose to give God my whole heart, not just a piece of it, but the entire thing. I wrestled with it for a moment, but I had to be real with myself. How can you truly love someone but you won't give them your heart. When you are in a relationship bound for marriage, you expect that person to give you their heart and you are supposed to trust them with your heart. We are supposed to be married to God. Would you really marry someone who you couldn't trust with your heart? Can you really say you love someone if you won't ever allow them to get behind those walls?
Last night I asked God to tear down my walls. I will never be able to fulfill the commandments if I'm never able to love. I plan on being married someday, and a marriage is supposed to be a reflection on earth of the spiritual relationship you have with God. How can I love a husband if I can't love the God who created him to begin with? What happens in the natural is simply a manifestation of whats going on in the spiritual realm, so if my spiritual relationship with God is not right, guess what is going to happen to my marriage when it comes? Exactly! To avoid all this, but more importantly to be able to regain my identity and reconcile the most important relationship I will ever have ( the one between myself and the Father) I asked God to bulldoze the walls and give me a new heart so that I can love again.
Love.
It happens to be the one thing we are supposed to posses, if we have nothing else. We were created in the image and likeness of God, and God's very nature is love. So we are to be love. Jesus himself said the first commandment is to love the Lord, God, with all our heart all our mind and all our soul AND to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Here in lies the dilemma most of us have - we do not love ourselves.
Many times I sit back and I think about this whole loving idea of loving yourself, and I wonder why its so easy for some and harder for others. Where did it all go wrong? What happened in my childhood that got me all twisted in my perception of what love is supposed to be? Why is it that even with the perfect example of what love is, why does it not take root in my mind that it is also for me?
Maybe its because in my short 23 years of life (well in a few more days it will be anyway) I have managed to build up walls and detach myself from feeling certain things. Many around me do not understand and they say, "wow you are so chill, I wish I could be more like you." Funny how the grass always seems to be greener on the other side. If they really understood that this nonchalantness (is that even a word?) that I possess is only from years of pain. When you expect people to love you the way you WANT them to love you and you experience broken promise after broken promise, piled on top of rape and molestation, there is a sort of emotional numbness that takes over - at least that's how it was for me.
At a certain point I was so through with trying to deal with this thing, I just pushed it to the back of my mind. There were more important things to concern myself with, I had no time for irrelevant things like how I felt. All the while searching for love. It is a part of my genetic make-up. I am a child of God who IS love and I'm supposed to look just like him, so when the world was busy stripping me and beating me to the point where I had lost my identity, the walls went up and the mask went on.
People are so funny. We can smile and go through the motions of life and no one would ever know anything was wrong. All the while be dying on the inside, slowly. Each day another piece whithers away. The crazy thing is even Christians go through this. Why? A lack of complete submission to God. To serve and obey God is a choice. This is why we were created with free will. Many will give their body to God, and even their mind, but when it comes to the heart, we don't want to give that to God. To give him our heart means we have to let him deal with those things that we have blocked off and guarded away in the deep chest of emotional, whatever.
Last night I had to make a choice. I could continue down the path I was going expecting things to change (insanity) OR I could choose to give God my whole heart, not just a piece of it, but the entire thing. I wrestled with it for a moment, but I had to be real with myself. How can you truly love someone but you won't give them your heart. When you are in a relationship bound for marriage, you expect that person to give you their heart and you are supposed to trust them with your heart. We are supposed to be married to God. Would you really marry someone who you couldn't trust with your heart? Can you really say you love someone if you won't ever allow them to get behind those walls?
Last night I asked God to tear down my walls. I will never be able to fulfill the commandments if I'm never able to love. I plan on being married someday, and a marriage is supposed to be a reflection on earth of the spiritual relationship you have with God. How can I love a husband if I can't love the God who created him to begin with? What happens in the natural is simply a manifestation of whats going on in the spiritual realm, so if my spiritual relationship with God is not right, guess what is going to happen to my marriage when it comes? Exactly! To avoid all this, but more importantly to be able to regain my identity and reconcile the most important relationship I will ever have ( the one between myself and the Father) I asked God to bulldoze the walls and give me a new heart so that I can love again.
Love.
6.29.2009
The Idea of Love
Love.
The word gets tossed around so frequently, I've come to realize many people don't even really know what it means. The word has lost its value. Many people can say it to me and it holds no weight. I don't want that "love" that constantly changes. I don't want that "love" that's so quick to walk away. As I take a step back and I evaluate the world in which we live, this lack of ability to truly comprehend true love does not surprise me at all.
Love is no longer something that is taken seriously. Love used to be something worth fighting for, better yet, worth dying for. Now its just another word to say to satisfy fleshly urges. Its a means to an end - you see what you want, and say what you think needs to be said to get it. Why is this so?
How can people take love seriously, when they don't take God seriously. The very nature of God is love, yet God gets treated like any average Joe off the street corner. People have a hard time receiving God, therefore I couldn't imagine the state in which I see "love" being any other way. People happen to be in love with the idea of being in love, rather than actually being in love. We are too scared to know God, so we run from love - we have commitment issues.
Love simply is. It's unconditional. It's forgiving. It's all you need.
God simply is. He's unconditional. He's forgiving. He's all you need.
God is Love.
So while, in theory, we know how to dress it up, love is an action word. Love causes you to DO things. For God so loved the world that He GAVE his only begotten son. Christ loved us so much HE DIED and ROSE for us with all power in his hand, and GAVE us that same resurrection power. God said IF you Love Him THEN you'll keep his commandments. That statement suggests that the love you have causes you to act upon it.
The state of love as we see it is merely a reflection of mans relationship with God - and it's quite sad.
Love does not seek to satisfy self
So I should be willing to lay down my insecurities
Willing to confess what you already know
Ready to end the show
Willing to be naked in the rawness of truth
Willing to share all of me with all of you
(excerpt from my poem "in love with love)
Until we come to know God for who He is, and truly fall in love with Him, we'll never know the true nature of love. We'll just have a bunch of artificial flavoring. I don't know about you, but I prefer that organic, 100% natural stuff - maybe that's just me...
The word gets tossed around so frequently, I've come to realize many people don't even really know what it means. The word has lost its value. Many people can say it to me and it holds no weight. I don't want that "love" that constantly changes. I don't want that "love" that's so quick to walk away. As I take a step back and I evaluate the world in which we live, this lack of ability to truly comprehend true love does not surprise me at all.
Love is no longer something that is taken seriously. Love used to be something worth fighting for, better yet, worth dying for. Now its just another word to say to satisfy fleshly urges. Its a means to an end - you see what you want, and say what you think needs to be said to get it. Why is this so?
How can people take love seriously, when they don't take God seriously. The very nature of God is love, yet God gets treated like any average Joe off the street corner. People have a hard time receiving God, therefore I couldn't imagine the state in which I see "love" being any other way. People happen to be in love with the idea of being in love, rather than actually being in love. We are too scared to know God, so we run from love - we have commitment issues.
Love simply is. It's unconditional. It's forgiving. It's all you need.
God simply is. He's unconditional. He's forgiving. He's all you need.
God is Love.
So while, in theory, we know how to dress it up, love is an action word. Love causes you to DO things. For God so loved the world that He GAVE his only begotten son. Christ loved us so much HE DIED and ROSE for us with all power in his hand, and GAVE us that same resurrection power. God said IF you Love Him THEN you'll keep his commandments. That statement suggests that the love you have causes you to act upon it.
The state of love as we see it is merely a reflection of mans relationship with God - and it's quite sad.
Love does not seek to satisfy self
So I should be willing to lay down my insecurities
Willing to confess what you already know
Ready to end the show
Willing to be naked in the rawness of truth
Willing to share all of me with all of you
(excerpt from my poem "in love with love)
Until we come to know God for who He is, and truly fall in love with Him, we'll never know the true nature of love. We'll just have a bunch of artificial flavoring. I don't know about you, but I prefer that organic, 100% natural stuff - maybe that's just me...
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