To love...

I have been reading Crazy love by Francis Chan for a while now. It's one of those books that I keep reading over and over. I knew right away this wasn't a book I wanted or needed to rush through. It talks a lot about loving God and in return loving others. I can't get the needs of others off my mind. I just carry a heavy burden for others needs and situations and the more I read the word, the more I see that is what the Lord desires from us all. No I do not always drop what I am doing to seek others before myself, but the more I fall in love with Jesus and the more I learn about Him, the more I understand how the two go hand in hand.

...We show tangible love for God in how we care for the poor and those who are suffering. HE expects us to treat the poor and the desperate as though they were Christ Himself. If you actually saw Jesus starving, what would you do for Him?

Jesus said, the two greatest commands are to "love the LOrd your God with all your heart, soul, and mind" and to "love your neighbor as yourself." Christ connects the command to "love God" with the command to "love your neighbor." By loving "the least of these," we are loving God Himself.

As we love the "least of these" which are the people around us day to day, we are showing the true love that we have for our Saviour. If we fail to love on, minister to, and pour our lives into others, then how can we say we love God with everything? The Bible says we can't!

John tells us that "whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did" (1 John 2:6) Are you ready and willing to make yourself nothing? To take the very nature of a servant?

I know for myself I have moments where it is all about me. I want what I want. I need 'ME" time. I need this or that, but what I really need is to be nothing. I need to shrink so Christ can be seen as everything. I want to be there in my walk with the Lord. I'm not there yet and I have a long way to go, but I am seeking him daily and loving him more. It really is true that the more I seek him, the more I find him, the more I find him, the more I love him.

I want to be pleasing in the Lord's site. I don't want to stagger into heaven knowing I barely made it there. I want the LOrd to be proud of me. I want him to KNOW me. Not just my name, but by what I have done for his kingdom.

"it's impossible to please God in any way other than wholehearted surrender."

I don't want to just let life happen, I want to actively be running toward Christ.

"And now, little children, abide in him, so that when is appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming."

1 John 2:28