It started out with me realzing (God showing me), that i judge/measure other people by what they do. By their actions rather than who they are. Then I realized it was because I do the same thing with myself. I judge/measure myself by what I do rather than who I am. I find my worth in my ministry (what I do for God), rather than I'm his. It makes Him Loving me conditional, rather than unconditional. (I know that there's nothing I can do to be saved/earn salvation, but I still find myself trying to strive to be Loved.) So I try to find my worth and my accomplishments of what I do for Him, rather than who I am in Him.
(Bad Logic- I know, but this was my next thought process.) If you're a Christian who plays basketball and you define yourself and find your worth in being a basketball player, then God will probably remove basketball. Or basketball will be removed by Him or you. Then your forced to define yourself by something else, where God should and usually steps in. <- This works fine for basketball, not so good with "ministry." It more or less involved me saying, ok. So if I define myself by my ministry, by what I do. I won't do anything and then figure out what I am. . . . fail. - I tried to stop ministry to realign my focus but that didn't seem to work. I was just being disobedient. So I realized, I need to figure out how to find my worth outside of ministry without stopping ministry, by shifting mental gears.
I got to talk to J Hunt this morning, and talk some of this out. He is learning/dealing with the same thing. How do we give our all, without doing. Which if that doesn't make since, he put it another way which explains it a little better. "I try to love You with my efforts, rather than my heart." I should be loving you with my heart, and letting my efforts follow. Not that the efforts are bad, or are wrong, but that it's like putting the cart before the horse. God wants me not what I do. Jesus died for me not my ministry. So the question came up, "How do I love God?"
We hit the books, well just one book, but it's a good one.
How do I love God?
-"If you love me, feed my sheep." - John 21:17 (but that's still doing, and effort)
-"If you love me, you will obey what I command." - John 14:15
Obey what I command. Ok. Check the page over John 15:9-12.
"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands you will reman in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you."
Then in trying to figure that out. We were referenced/lead over to 1 John. Solid piece incase you were ever bored. 1 John 3:16-20
"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything."
The thing that seemed to keep coming up over and over and over again was the fact of love each other. "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God." -1John4:7. It all comes down to loving people.
It's not doing ministry, it's just loving people.
When you hear serving God, what do you think of? I think of of church, of cru, of leading a bible study, of meeting with individuals, of being in the praise band, of leading cru, of hanging up signs. But did Jesus ever say to "do ministry"? or did he say Love people. So how do we love people? We love them by giving them what they need. What they need, not what they want. We seek and meet those needs. In the book "Starving Jesus," they specify that Christ-like love is giving someone what they need at great personal cost.
To Love:
the only love we express, is the love we've experienced.
Think about that, when our parents love us and hug us, so when we love someone we want to give them a hug. When, they give up work to come to our games, we love someone by putting off schoolwork and going to their game or their play or event. We just replicate the love that we've experienced. Most of it is, by doing stuff, by putting forth effort and showing our actions. But the only way we can love each other, the only way we can Love God is to understand and experience His Love.
So the question to figure out:
How do we experience and fully know God's love & how do we flect that back to Him and those around us?
What does it mean to Love?
No comments:
Post a Comment