Tag: God

12 How do I love thee?

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On February 8, 2023

In Love

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 How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.  That is an oft quoted first line of a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning in Sonnet 43.  Even if you’re not into poetry or literature, you might want to take a moment to click on the link and read this famous poem.  I don’t know if Elizabeth was inspired by the Word of God when writing, but Mark 12:30 tells us the ways we are to love God.

Love God with all your heart.  In this verse ALL is the key word to love as well as to peace.  Loving anyone requires everything.  If it is divided or broken, it is not ALL.  Yes, we still love other people and need to love them wholeheartedly, too.  What this means is that when we are saying or showing that we love God, we are loving Him only, not another idol or god of our own making.  When a couple truly loves each other, there is no other lover.  It’s just the two of them.  So it should be with God.

Love God with all your soul.  One definition on the internet says your soul is the seat of your memory, feelings, imagination, convictions, desires, and affections.  These are all areas that can be infiltrated with good or bad.  If we love God with all our soul, then these areas of our life will be controlled by Him and leave little room for Satan to put his two cents in and draw us away.

Love God with all your mind.  This one is kind of obvious but yet it isn’t.  It really goes along with our soul, but our mind needs to be harnessed by the Spirit of God so what we think in our mind is purified before it gets to the soul.  If my mind is thinking about what I just heard, saw, or read, that’s what’s going to seep into my soul.  When the Holy Spirit guards my mind, if those thoughts are sinful, he puts a stop to them before they get to my soul.  We can’t love God with sinful thoughts in our mind.

Love God with all your strength.  Some days I feel like I could conquer anything and other days I don’t have the strength to bend over and pick up something off the floor.  Whether you’re weak or ill, or as “strong as an ox”, the amount of strength you have is all that God requires.  He doesn’t want us to just give Him what strength is left at the end of a busy tiring day.  He wants all the strength we have from morning to night.

Freely…  Elizabeth also states that she loved freely.  God wants us to love Him that way, too.  He doesn’t make us but asks that we give our love freely with no strings attached.

Purely…  Elizabeth says she loves purely as well.  There’s no other way to love God or anyone except purely which goes back to loving with our whole soul.  If you give any less, then it’s not ALL.

Better after death…  We love God and others now, but our love will be enhanced and magnified when we see Him face to face after death or when He comes again.

How do you love?  Count the ways and see if they need improvement.  More love thoughts on the way…

11 LOVE’s beginning

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On February 7, 2023

In Love

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Love didn’t come naturally when we were born.  Babies are demanding and when they spit their peas or beets out at us, we might think they actually hate us. 😊 

When that sweet baby is put in your arms, the first thing you do is hug them to you and kiss them, but it takes a long time before they respond in kind.  God, however, loved us even before we were born.  Think about that for a minute.  Have you ever loved anyone before you met them? Before you knew what they looked like or what their personality was like?  God knew everything about us before we were born and still loves us no matter what we look like, what we say, or what we do.

My mother’s hobby was making things out of plastic canvas and yarn.  She went to Heaven over 15 years ago and I still have some of the things she made.  Others have disintegrated or broke.  The heart in this picture is one thing I still have and put out every year around Valentine’s Day.  As I looked at it, a couple of thoughts came to my mind.  Before you continue reading, look at this picture for a few minutes and see what stands out to you.

* * *

The shape of the heart is the first thing I noticed.  It’s not a typical rounded heart.  That’s hard to do with something as stiff as plastic canvas.  Love comes in all  shapes, sizes, and colors.

Some people only open their hearts a little and other people have a big heart.  God has the biggest heart of all and it’s open to everyone.

The second thing that caught my eye was the key hanging down from the heart which drew my eyes up to the keyhole that’s easy to miss when glancing at the heart.  If there’s a keyhole in something and it’s locked, obviously you’ll need the key to open it.  Is your heart open to love or is it locked up from past hurts?

The third thing I noticed was what’s behind the heart.  It’s hanging on a door, but if you look at the design of the door in the picture, it looks like the heart is hanging on a cross.  That’s the beginning of love. 

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16, NIV

Love began when God created the world, continued as He gave His only Son for us, and will never end because if we know Him, we get to spend eternity basking in His love and He in ours.

More about love in the next post…

01 What’s Your Pet Peeve?

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On January 17, 2023

In Peace

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Search me, oh God – A great place to start is by listening to this great hymn on YouTube. 

I will venture to say that most of us have more than one pet peeve—myself included!  The one that annoys me the most at times is search results.  I search whether it’s on Amazon, Google, or another website for “front” because I don’t want “back” and get everything…a really helpful search?!  I search for “right” and get “left” or both.  I search for a brand name only and still get other brands in the results.  Or I search for “new” and get “refurbished” or “used”…NOT what I wanted.

The searches are not reliable in many aspects.  I search for only Prime on Amazon and get items that charge shipping.  Then there’s bait and switch tactics.  I select an item that ships for 2-day delivery only to find out at checkout that it won’t come for several weeks.

What does God find when He searches our hearts?  He does search us, you know!

“Search me, O God, and know my heart;
 test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Point out anything in me that offends you,
 and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”
(Psalm 139:23-24, NLT)

Does He find thoughts and attitudes that are pleasing to Him, or does He find unconfessed sin? When He searches, God wants to find good (not bad), righteous (not sinful), love (not hate), and other such qualities. Are the search results God finds pleasing or are they a pet peeve with God? Are the results something He can work with or not at all close to what He was hoping to find?

What people see on the outside of our lives may look good, but when they get closer and get to know us, are we the same on the inside?  Search your heart today and let God’s searchlight shine into the corners as well.  It will be a start to finding the peace we all long for and which I have found.  If you are yearning for peace in this volatile world, please let a comment below and read other posts here (This is my first one of many to come as I just started this blog.).  I’d love to share with you further how you, too, can find God’s perfect peace.

 

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