You Want me to What????

"We are never a more beautiful display of God's splendor than when willing to empty self for the lives of others." Beth Moore

"The only thing we absolutely could not survive would be the loss of God's love. And that is a loss we'll never have to try." Beth Moore

About a week ago, before I opened God's word, I prayed that God would help me focus on Him. In fact I wrote, "Father God, I am very distracted with my thoughts right now. I pray for focus and the desire to crave your word. I pray that you will teach me new things as I read in your word this morning." Boy did He answer my prayer!

Sometimes I struggle with understanding God's love and how he could possibly love someone like me. Honestly, I sometimes even doubt God's love. I know...terrible, but it's the truth. I also struggle with having a heart like God's and the desire to love others the way He does. That morning I opened my Bible to 1 John. God's love was all over the place! I read in 1 John 2:6 that "Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did." I kind of smirked and thought strike 1 against me. I know I don't walk as Jesus did. Then I wondered what that meant. How exactly did Jesus walk.

1 John 2:15-17 "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world-the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does-comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever." I realized that I love the world. I desire "things" of the world. This is not how Jesus walked. Matthew 8:20 says that "Jesus replied, Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head." Jesus did not have a nice home to live in let alone a place to lay His head. Why on earth should I, a sinner, think I deserve any more than I have already been blessed with?

God loves us so much that He calls us His children. 1 John 3:1 "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" I love the word lavished.

I read a little further down and I am told that I am to lay my life down for others. You want me to what?! Hold up God, this is not something of my nature. But that's what God's word says and that's what Jesus did. "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." One thing I have learned is that I can't pick and choose the commands I want to follow. We are to follow all of God's commands. Matthew 5:39 says "If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." I do not like to be wronged. And if I am, I have the tendency to make sure that person knows they have wronged me. It is so hard to be humble and turn the other cheek. But that's what Jesus did and that's what God commands us to do. You just can't argue with God's word.

He also commands us to "not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth" 1 John 3:18.

I absolutely loved reading 1 John 7-21! "God is love...love comes from God...God so loved us...His love is made complete in us...God loved us first...He sent His son to be the Savior of the world...we rely on God's love...God is love...there is no fear in love...we love because He first loved us!!!!" After reading all of that, God said "Brooke, do you believe me now?" I said yes Father I do! I am soooo loved! Now how can I show you love God??

Well, He said, "by loving Me and carrying out my commands. This is love for me: to obey my commands. And my commands are not burdensome." I love how clearly He speaks.

Being a follower of Christ is not easy. "But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only FEW will find it." God calls us to get out of our comfort zone, "to cross the other side of the lake." We are to trust God even in the midst of a storm. We are to hate the world. We are to lay down our lives for others. We are to give to the needy. We are to love our enemies. This is how we can show God love and after reading about His love for me how can I not? That doesn't mean it will be easy at all. Satan will attack. But God is greater than Satan. Satan knows that "his time is short" Revelation 12:12.

My prayer today is that I will have a heart like Jesus. One that follows God and obeys His commands. A heart that doesn't see His commands as a burden.

Thank you for letting me share my heart with you today.