What person do you know that you can honestly say that about?!?!? Do you know anyone who would give up their one & only Son because of the love they have for someone else? I don't. People don't naturally love like that, only God does. The bible tells us that as believers, we are to love one another.
1 John 4:7-8...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. (NIV)
1 John 4:10-11...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. (NIV)
But do we honestly make a habit of loving others as our Lord Jesus Christ did? I know I haven't. Not always anyway, but I'm learning to. You see, the most incredible thing about Christ living in you, is that as your faith grows you start to uncover just who He is & what He is all about. You discover that one day when you weren't even aware of it, He placed compassion in your heart where before there was none. He deposits empathy where once you were full of apathy. Where unforgiveness used to reign over you keeping you in bondage, he breaks the chains with His perfect absolution and mercy.
How do I know these things? How can I claim this about Him? I tell you these things because this is what my Lord has done for me. He has been transforming me from the inside out, to become more and more like Him from the moment I surrendered my life to God and accepted His awesome grace in Christ Jesus. Sounds impossible you say...? Well, with man it is. There's no way any counseling or self-help book could do for me what my Savior has done, that's for sure!
(NKJV) Matthew 19:26...But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
There was a time in my life when I never thought I'd be able to forgive...anyone.....ever. Being sexually abused as an adolescence by someone I loved, who was supposed to love me kinda poisoned me as far as the whole trusting others thing went. Once I did let someone in though, the moment you betrayed my trust, that was it. We were through. No second chances, no making up. I'd burn that bridge so fast believing that there was NO way that person would ever be able to hurt me again. Little did I know that unforgiveness works to turn your heart bitter toward others.
As I have learned from my Pastor at church..."Unforgiveness in any relationship will effect every relationship."--P. Troy Gramling of Potential Church. You see, there was no way anything I could do would be able to cure my broken heart, only Christ can! He is capable of everything I have mentioned tonight and MORE! I wonder, do you know Him?
I personally believe that if all of us who claim to be Christians would seek to live out our lives as Jesus lived His, the world would be blinded by the light and love of our Savior King and so many more who are lost would come to the Truth and be saved from the web of lies that the world has spun around them!
Until my next post...
(NIV) Ephesians 3:16-19...I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment