What do you think of when you think of One heart, One mind, and One love? It makes me think of how much we have in common as human beings and don’t even realize it. I believe we all are running after the same thing more than anything. What is it we want more than anything? What is it we chase after in life? What is it that is going to bring us contentment and peace above all else?
From my perspective, it is love. Like you, I want a love that comes from a place of sincerity and truth. I want love from a heart that accepts me. I want it from a heart that honors me. I want love from one who knows the True love. (more…)
I can recall the precise moment when I realized how much God loves me. It was the most fulfilling day of my life and the beginning of many more. I recall feeling so empty and alone before I knew His love. My defining moments were at the beginning of a new year and the end of another life.
It was New Year’s Day and I was taking down the Christmas tree ornaments one by one from the tree, singing along with worship music as I was working. I love to sing and though that is not one of my better talents, I was singing out from my heart. I was alone in the house and I had climbed up a ladder to remove some of the ornaments out of my reach. Once I reached the third step of the ladder, something happened inside of me and a flood of emotions and tears began to spill from my heart and eyes. I climbed down the ladder as quickly as possible and sat in a chair. In that very moment, I began desperately calling out to God to help me and save me from my empty heart that was so heavy and broken to pieces. I told Him I couldn’t do this “life thing” alone anymore and that I needed Him to walk with me, to show me how to live and lead me in my life.
I had realized how my life before was so opposed to Him, and how much He must have been hurting as He watched over me all those years, longing for me to come to Him. I am certain He would have said to me how much better my life could be with Him. Not easier, but better and fuller with more meaning and purpose. I had reached a point of realization and recognition of my sinful life; and that no matter what I tried, doing things on my own was no longer working. My life was a complete mess and it was due to me continuously choosing the wrong path without being aware of it. Going through a divorce at the same time confirmed even more that I had not made wise choices for my life. I wasn’t a bad person; at least I didn’t think so.
What I recognized that day was that I did not have the human capacity to choose the right ways or do the best things, no matter how intelligent or analytical I was. I learned that without letting go of the control, and letting God have my life completely, that I would remain in that current state of emptiness. What I realized and had revelation of was that I was God’s child and even more so, that He loved me no matter what I had done. He had sacrificed His own Son’s life so that I could be forgiven. I remember feeling such sorrow for the way I had hurt Him. How could I have done things so opposed to all He represents?
That wasn’t all, I realized through reading His Word that He literally raised His Son, Jesus Christ, from the dead! He brought him back to life and He ascended to heaven after three days to reign at the right hand of God at the throne in heaven! When I looked at my own life, I then realized that He was offering me the same opportunity. I was being offered a chance to put my old life behind me with my sins forgiven and remembered no longer, and to begin to learn about Him and His truth, His love and His justice. Believing this and putting my trust in Him would start a transformation in me that would change everything. I had no clue what was next. There were trials and hardships to overcome, but I knew, that because I was His child, I was an over comer, therefore I sought above all else to press on to know Him deeper. As I grew to know Him deeper I became more like Him, not perfect, no one except Him is perfect, but my life began to change. My perspective changed, my heart began to soften, to heal and to allow Him to fill me up. I began to reach out to be there for other people in need, to put them first, to spend my time on things that were worthy of His honor, not things that were opposed to Him and would wither and die. I am telling you, this God that we have hears us when we call out to Him and He will answer us. It may not be exactly what we want to hear, it may be a no or a wait; but He will answer and He will do what is precisely the very best for us in the exact timing it needs to be done. He knows our hearts better than we know them ourselves. Him doing everything in His timing causes us to learn to depend on Him more and more, deeper and deeper, until that is all we know, a work always in process. Dependency upon Him and time with Him creates a new life from a life that was once dead, but is now raised in Christ as a new creation.
An intimate and personal relationship with Jesus Christ is unlike any other relationship. No matter where you go wrong, no matter what ails you, no matter how much you hurt, He will be there to guide you when you earnestly call out to Him. That is called unconditional love. There is not one human on this earth that can offer that to another in his own strength. Sure we can come close, but we don’t meet the mark because we are human. Why do you think we call the dog man’s best friend? Could it be because a dog cannot talk back or tell us how bad or disappointing we are to them?
God meets us where we are, loves us where we are and begins a work in us from a heart of love that was there at our creation. He is the Truth and He tells it in such a way of grace that we keep running back to Him for more. Why do we keep going back to Him? He designed us to need Him. He is our Creator and He buried deep inside of us an innate desire to know Him and His love. He loved us first! He gave His own Son’s life for us! When we open our hearts to believe that truth, submit our lives to Him and invite Him to be our every thing, we will begin to see what it means to truly be loved and how to love well. It is through His love that loving ourselves and others well happens. I am a living-breathing testament to this truth. I hope you too can be.
I had someone say to me recently, “You are nice to everyone, how do you do that? How can you be nice to the people who have been so hurtful toward you in the past? How do you put the bitterness and anger in its place?” My response was that,” If I continue to hold bitterness and anger in my heart toward others, it only hurts me. It causes me sickness, worry, and heartache. It causes my heart to be hard and empty. I said that I had lived more than half of my life that way and I choose not to live that way anymore. I am free from that now, I will not go back and live in the past.” That was a long way to say, which I should have said in that moment, “How can I be unforgiving to someone and not extend grace to him or her, when I know so deeply the grace which God has freely imparted to me. I desire to live in that grace every moment and I would never choose to go back. God takes care of every injustice, that is His place, not ours.” God is love; when we love others through the filter of our experiences and knowing His truth, we will reflect the love of Him into others hearts!
Through His truth He has promised to protect us, guide us and provide our needs, as well as promising the assurance of reigning with Him eternally in His Kingdom. Do you have that assurance today? Are you in need of a Savior that will love you no matter what you have done? You have one with His hands extended to you right now, inviting you to know Him. When we invite Jesus into our hearts for the strength to be all He wants us to be, we will recognize our wrong ways and turn away from them and as we follow His lead He will make a way!. He will not fail us. He is the God of yesterday, today and tomorrow. He is unchanging. He is truth, love and grace. He is the great I AM!
If you have read this far, perhaps this has touched your heart. God may be pursuing you vehemently. I am praying for you that you will open your heart and let Him in. If you are willing to let go of the control and open your heart to Him, ask Him to take hold of your head, your heart, your eyes and ears, your hands and feet and lead you into all He has for you, to show you the truth and to enable you, by the power of the gift of the Holy Spirit, to persevere, stand firm and become all He desires you to be. Read His Word in the Bible, connect with others who truly love Jesus and share His amazing grace together bringing glory and honor to His name!
I wish you a Happy New Year! I pray that your year is filled with the peace, joy and love, available to us, only through the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
It is so hard with all the responsibilities that we have in our daily lives, especially if we are single mothers, to take time to be still. But if we begin by setting aside 5 minutes daily as a part our routine, to read one verse of Scripture and then close our eyes and listen to our innermost being, we would find that would crave that 5 minutes, because of the benefits it provides. It sets the precedent for our day, intentionally develops a closer relationship with God, and sets the stage for the lives around us. It is much like diet; we discipline ourselves because we know it is good for us, we eat select foods for proper nourishment and we exclude certain foods from our diet because we know they are empty of anything necessary for our healthy development. If we can discipline ourselves in this, it would seem that it would be easy to discipline ourselves in taking 5 minutes to listen to our Creator, and to explore and learn more about who this Being is that loves us so much. But it isn’t easy, and like many things we strive for, we have to demand it of ourselves before we realize the benefit. It is then through the unfolding of your days that you will see the ultimate benefit of your self-discipline. It will be heard through a child’s profession that Christ is her Savior, or through a college student that says, I know God is in control, or maybe it will just be a peace inside of you that you cannot explain. However it is shown to you, you will know and you will desire more and more of it!
How many times have your eyes been drawn to someone because of their outward attractiveness? How many times have you chosen people to be on your team, to be a friend, or to be a spouse based on outward appearance? Have you ever been in a relationship because someone chose you exclusively because of your appearance?
My experience has been both. I have chosen and I have been chosen, based on outward attractiveness and appearance before taking the very necessary time to be known or to know. What about you?
Many of the devastating events that happen in our lives can be at the hand of someone we chose to be a part of our lives. Oftentimes, I have wondered why I skipped the step of taking the time to really know people. I concluded, it was a lack of instruction and knowledge given to me. What I mean to say is that it seemed perfectly normal for me to fall into relationships quickly, with the most handsome man and without taking the time to really know him. I don’t think anyone ever taught me to do this differently, but if they did maybe I already had so many holes in me that I missed it!
In 1 Samuel 16, God gave Samuel the responsibility to choose a new king for Israel-a king to rule over all the people. What a huge responsibility, not only for Samuel, but also for the one chosen to sit on the throne! In God’s instructions to Samuel, He was very clear with him about not selecting a person based on appearance. Saul, a very tall and attractive man, was the king that God was replacing. Since Saul had become consumed more with what people thought of him than his relationship with God, he no longer made a great leader and king, so God had him removed from the throne (I Samuel 15).
Have you ever chosen to be in a relationship exclusively based on appearance and beauty? Has anyone ever chosen you based on those outward masks?
God’s words to Samuel were, “I do not look at the things man looks at, I look at the heart.” Why don’t we look at the hearts of people? Could it be because we are conditioned by our culture? If you have spent any time thumbing through magazines or watching television, you can easily see that our culture encourages and motivates people to believe that outward appearance is more important than anything. It is a market that drives us to think only of ourselves and how much we can accumulate. When we do this all the things constantly distract us, and as a result, we don’t stop to look inside ourselves to explore why we are doing what we do!
If God is looking at our hearts, maybe we should take the time necessary to heal. We could start with asking for forgiveness, receiving forgiveness and moving forward in His “FREE” love. It seems like it makes more sense for us to stop trying so hard to hide all of our imperfections by adding more “stuff”, and understand that God loves us just like we are! His love is free and so is His forgiveness.
I wonder what it would look like if we decided to change our way of thinking and to look at others straight into their hearts before we decide we know someone well enough to become involved in relationships. When we ignore this vital step in choosing people to be a part of our lives, we may lose an opportunity to have a full and healthy relationship. We should strive to be a person of character and not worry about all the other “stuff”. God’s love creates character. Conforming to society’s standard creates more stuff around us!
I am not saying that character is missing in all those with lovely outward appearances and beauty; what I am saying is that it’s crucial to take the time to discover your own heart and the heart of others. Then you will know if “the stuff” is just stuff or a cover-up.
What are you doing to free your heart of all the debris so when others see you they will see a true heart of love? Do you know that a free heart will attract a free heart?
There truly is nothing on this earth more beautiful, more alive and more alluring than a person who loves from a heart that is free to love!
Most people believe this kind of love is shared between people outside of those we are in deep relationship with, but the Word teaches it is this type of love which was designed for all mankind by his Creator!
Because I had not known genuine love I became entrapped in the lies of how it is otherwise defined. My hope for us is that we will each be fully embraced by God’s true love and start the journey of looking deep within ourselves. I hope we take the time to cleanse our minds and hearts each day and begin the process of a new way of thinking. It is then we will be able to fully receive the love that is freely offered to each of us.
In this love every aspect of our life will change, we will begin to see the original intent and design of relationship and all it offers. We will begin to crave this love, unable to live without it, and our life will begin to be full of giving and receiving genuine love from God and others!
