Psalm 36:5
Test me, LORD, and try me,
examine my heart and my mind;
for I have always been mindful of your unfailing love
and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness.
Psalm 26:2-3
How do you love for a season?
How can love exist in a limit?
How does love cost?
How is love defined?
Christ has called me to just that kind of love this year. To say I wanted to define the terms is an understatement. But to walk in His steps......
The love journey I am on is constantly stretching my heart to be more like Jesus. It cost Jesus everything to love. He sacrificed and limited himself by taking on a tent of flesh... for love. He endured all sorts of emotional pain in that life...for love. He willingly agreed to the pain of sacrifice for our sins...for love. Even now He has given us the ability to grieve Him....for love. In all moments he loves; regardless of circumstance or others or me. His decision to love, His choice, His Life was not a response to us. He is not who He IS by our actions; by mine, by others. He is not who He is conditionally. HE IS who HE IS. He is THE Constant. The Rock. The Strong Tower.
But I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love; for you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble.
Psalm 59:16
This is the lesson upon my heart this year. It's one I've known and tried to live....yet this year....TESTING came and came and came....The purification process was HOT! Why so much? Why so hot? Why so persistent? The voice of LOVE, of TRUTH speaks to me, "This IS love. Infatuation is based on emotion. Worldly love is based on self interest and desire and coveting and reactions and circumstance and merit. Real Love is selfless, sacrificial, faithful, constant, and good; full of mercy, grace, forgiveness and hope; despite circumstance or merit or emotion. I love you, everyday, all the time, every time. I do not hesitate my love for you considering myself. I love completely and perfectly. Because I am LOVE, there is no other. Know me, know love. Give what you've been given. It's not yours to keep. It is mine to give. Love does not belong to you. It belongs to me."
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.
1 John 4:7-12
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
Romans 8:35
You, LORD, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you.
Psalm 86:5
Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.
Deuteronomy 7:9
Love is completely void of self. So I ask myself, "How much do I love? Who do I love?" I am full of love for others. I understand love is defined by sacrifice. I know love is unaltered by circumstance. These are heart strings I've learned to play from past encounters with THE HOLY ONE.
Void of self......void. Me out of the thought process altogether. Void, as an adjective, is revealing:
1. Law. having no legal force or effect; not legally binding or enforceable.
2. useless; ineffectual; vain.
3. devoid; destitute (usually followed by of ): a life void of meaning.
4. without contents; empty.
5. without an incumbent, as an office.
6. Mathematics . (of a set) empty.
7. (in cards) having no cards in a suit.
LOVE gives up legal right, force or effect....the power of the LAW....the enforcement
LOVE gives up vanity and manipulation or use...planned effectiveness
LOVE gives up self purpose and meaning and security
LOVE gives up pride and protection to risk hurt and pain
LOVE gives up being in control
LOVE gives up laws of order and logic
LOVE gives up gives up privilege
LOVE gives up all the world's systems.... for another....
THAT is what JESUS did. He did it for me and calls me to do it for others.
For the least of these.
For the undeserving.
For the persecutors.
For the lost.
For.................whoever HE CALLS me to LOVE.
Actually He calls me to surrender so He can LOVE through me. I'm not love. He is.
Unless the LORD had given me help,
I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death;
When I said, "My foot is slipping,"
your unfailing love, LORD, supported me.
When anxiety was great within me,
your consolation brought me joy.
Psalm 94:17-19
Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.
Romans 12:10
Follow God's example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Ephesians 5:1-2
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.
I John 4:16-21
In this season I've finally come to the gift of HIS LOVE in me. Not for me but in me. He desires to send me as a gift of love to those he loves. It's His LOVE that sustains me, comforts and heals me. His LOVE that sends me hope and fills me with joy..... WHAT a gift of love. My arms fling wide to His embrace of love, unconditional by me, faithful and true by Him. That same love can flow through me to others. Love has never begun with me. How foolish my thoughts have been to think it ever did. Freedom to love spreads it's fingers over the most recent strings accross my heart playing a greatful Love Song.
It is good to praise the LORD
and make music to your name, O Most High,
proclaiming your love in the morning
and your faithfulness at night,
to the music of the ten-stringed lyre
and the melody of the harp.
Psalm 92:1-3
Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.
Psalm 63:3
I needed that kind of love today. And the LORD Jesus showed up with His LOVE and Lived in and through me! Oh, how I love Jesus.....because He first loved me!
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
John 13:34-35
Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
1 Peter 4:8
When I release the LOVE, the LORD LOVES me with, to others, it is the LORD HIMSELF I have LOVED. Completing the circle ring of our engagement. If no one recieves it, if I am hurt, if I am rejected by the world....I am not by JESUS. HE is the lover of my soul and in those moments I am the lover of HIS. For you Jesus. Because I love you and I know that every time the circumstance is against me, you are for me and recieve my love.
Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy..
1 Peter 1:8
Show me the wonders of your great love, you who save by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes.
Psalm 17:7
Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
Psalm 23:6
Praise be to the LORD, for he showed me the wonders of his love when I was in a city under siege.
Psalm31:21
For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD.
Psalm 117:2
May the LORD direct your hearts into God's love and Christ's perseverance.
2 Thessalonians 3:5
Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance.
Jude 1:2
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