Part 2: Loving Like Jesus Loves Me (2/21/09)

Verse of the week:
By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. John 13:35

In this section, we will touch on two points:
1. How much does God love me?
2. What does He want me to do with that love?

1. How much does God love me? In John 6:37 it says God loves us "always." If you go back and look at the Greek translation, the word this is derived from is the Greek word "always." Yeah, that's right, always always means always. This means in every time, every circumstance, every condition. All ways.

You may or may not have accepted God, but God accepts us as we are. We often think we need to come to the Lord meeting some kind of standard, but that assumption is not of the Lord. He doesn't love us because of who we are, but because of who He is.

2. What do we do with it? We accept each other as God accepts us. Romans 15:7



How sobering is that thought? We're not talking just about an emotional love here. We're talking about the act of love. An action of acceptance. To say "love others as God has loved you" is an almost impossible calling. I can't die on a cross to save you. I can't go to hell and demand from Satan the redemption of all your sins. But in love, God accepts us as what we are right now. Not for what He knows we can be, but what we are. Can we do that? for each other? Can we accept each other as the flawed, broken, shameful sinners we really are? Can we accept each other knowing we will be hurt? God accepts us knowing we will betray him, we will fail him, we will hurt him, but he accepts us despite that. Not even despite it, but because of it. God desires us. In that desire, He seeks us for who we are in our entirety, flaws included. He accepts us because he desires us. can we accept each other with that kind of forever?

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Cor 13:7

Part 1: Love Matters Most (2/15/09)

Verse of the week:
"Which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied:"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment and the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself."

This is the scripture that spoke to me most personally: "We can not love God whom we have not seen if we do not love those who we do see." 1 JN 4:20

When people say "I'm not perfect, but overall, I'm a good person and God knows that." Do they know that they must love to be forgiven? Love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Pt 4:8 What is love to them? Are they showing love in a Godly way? We must love God and love others the way God first loved us. And if they do not know God, how can they love? For God is love. (1 JN 4:8) And if they do not know God, they can not love because they do not know love, therefor they can not love in a way that would cover their sins. So who cares if you are a "good" person?? What is "good" by the standards of a hateful world? If you do not know God, then you can not love. If you do not love, then you can not forgive.

God, I know, if nothing else, people who know me and know my whole heart, they know my heart is full of love. I long for my heart to be full of your love Lord, a love that knows no bounds, a love that is never ceasing, ever forgiving, and mighty to save. Some people say, if you are a Christian, your greatest witness is your life. But the truth is, my life is, and has always been, a giant mess. I hope my greatest witness is my love. I will make mistakes in my life, everyday, every moment. I will have regrets, I will strive for change. I will work to be a better woman, mother, sister, friend. And I will fail. Everyday, I will fail. But God with everything you have given me, I will give back love. I will give your love. I will work to love like you love me.

Eagerly pursue and seek to acquire love. Make it your aim, your greatest quest. 1 Cor 14:1

Introduction

We're doing an awesome series at church called 40 Days of Love and it's about how God loves us and also how we are to love others. It includes the sermons, bible studies and "homework" as in things our church intends us to do to help the practice. It's really been impacting me in amazing ways so I would like to blog my notes here. It's already been going for two weeks so I will go back and back blog but I will try to get it up every Sunday from now on.

excuse me sir, but you're blocking my driveway.

So I came home from the park today to find this in my front yard:

It seems our idiot neighbors thought it would be a good idea to burn something in their yard, it caught fire, and burned the entire fence down, among some other things in their yard. The property line where the fence was destroyed is not actually ours, which is good, but it's still pretty lame that now the privacy fence is offering no privacy at all so I suspect we will help Timmy, our other neighbor, rebuild it as soon as all the waterlog subsides. This is what the back of Timmy's house looked like:
um yeah, thats not a gate. That's where said firemen took out about 10 feet of fence so they could better access the fire.

This is just to the left of the previous picture. The fire went about 200 feet or so across these people's property line.

Smore's anyone?

I seem to have lost my sanity,

if you find it, could you please be so kind as to return it to me?

Why yes, I did quit working in June to be home with my son. Yeah, I do remember why. It's funny you should ask. It seems that one woman, with only the two hands God bestowed her, can only do so much in these 24 short hours offered each day. Laundry, dinner, cleaning, mopping, and a 40 hour job, they don't seem to all fit into the same bucket. And somehow I need to find room for raising kids, sleep, and a little social life. Yeah.... riiiiiight.

So... anyway. Karen said something about one of my posts sounding happy which made me paranoid about the others sounding depressed, so let me look on the bright side of life here. The job has been awesome. I make my own hours, I work from home, and honestly it could not be any easier. I'm whole heartedly really good at it and that's nice for a change. Especially since I lost my most recent position in a giant mess of flaming suckness. So, thats great. Also the pay was unexpected so it's going straight to the cruise fund. This is great because it means we will actually have the money to spend on going on excursions and stuff which will be awesome.

On another note, Dennis's contract jobs have still been really steady so we are still totally on track to pay off the last of the second car. This has been such a God thing and I'm in utter amazement and praise that He has continued to provide. It's amazing to watch Him work and know that, despite the economy, no matter what happens, we will be provided for.

Also, Anakin is in school now and that's been great. He's having a little trouble adjusting, but we're getting there. For whatever reason, he seems to have an issue with goign potty there but the teachers are optimistic and they think he sill get over it. And they have been great about working with him, so that's good.

My spiderman quilt is coming along nicely. I've got the final design down on paper and should be getting started on the squares in the next couple of days. I've only got a few more days of work so I should be able to get it going soon and I hope to have it done before the end of the month. We'll see. This is only my second quilt and I have never dont squares like this before so I've got to figure out what I'm doing first. On paper it looks awesome so I really hope it works out like I want it to.

Okay well that's all for now. I'll try to do some more blogging with pictures when work is done.