How do you handle dead-on, head-on, full-force expressions of love? Most of us react with discomfort to simple compliments and gifts, much less to accepting the spotlight of God's unconditional life-changing Love. We become moving targets due to feelings of unworthiness or because we don't want to "owe" God anything. Too bad for us because we are unworthy and we already owe Him everything since He sacrificed His Son so we could enjoy abundant life on earth and eternal life in heaven. We can either live out our abundant lives in the depths of His inescapable Love or negate them by denying His Love, refusing to let His Love change us, or wasting our time working to deserve His Love. None of our feeble responses please Him but neither do they change the fact that He overwhelmingly loves us.
Parents ask their children, "Are you strong enough to walk away from a fight?" Men ask themselves, "Am I secure enough in my manhood to wear a pink shirt or carry my wife's purse or let my little girl put rollers in my hair?" Women ask themselves, "Can I step back and let my children make and pay for their own mistakes?" Similarly, we must ask ourselves, "Am I strong enough to stop trying to earn God's Love and just receive it?" Paul's prayer in Ephesians 3:16-19 was for believers to have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. Personally, I believe it takes power to accept God's Love because we have to shove our pride out of the way first. We have to let go of our good works to accept His grace and admit our need to accept His Love. It takes God-given power to say, "My life is not about avoiding what makes me feel uncomfortable or self-conscious. My life is about accepting Your Love, loving You in return, and freeing You to love others through me as You free me to accept Your Love from them." I'm ready to plug into the Power and let His Love flow.
Dear Father, we get terribly caught up in our comfort zones, to the point that we miss out on the lives You intended us to live. Forgive us when we let our self-consciousness or feelings of unworthiness keep us from loving others. Forgive us when our ideas of what Your Love should look like get in the way of Your Love. Empower us to let You love us fully, as You desire. Thank You for Your mysterious and unfathomable Love. I long to be filled with Your Spirit and lost in Your love.*
In the name of Jesus, our Power Source for abundant living!
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast." Ephesians 2:8-9
"I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. and I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge -- that you maybe filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." Ephesians 3:16-19
"Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge." Psalm 62:8
*idea borrowed from the hymn, Blessed Assurance "filled with His Spirit, lost in His love."
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