Authentic Love

" I accept you as you are"
" I believe that you are valuable"
" I care when you hurt"
" I desire only what is best for you"
" I erase all offenses"

Could anyone resist being loved like this. Wouldn't you eventually be drawn to a love like this when you realized that it was real and authentic?

This real, authentic love is not shallow, It has what it takes to stay the course instead of looking for a way out. Running the other direction is simply not an option. It always opts for working through a situation, It doesn't bail out in the midst of a storm, it is tenuous and resilient.  This kind of love stands firm.

This is exactly the way the God loves me !!!  It is the way that He loves you.  Isn't that incredibly amazing ?
How can I resist it?  I can't, I succumb, I embrace it and because of it, I choose to love that same way.
I, of course, fail at times because I am flawed by sin but this will be my goal.
Remember today my friends that you are loved and because of that you are free to love in return.

Surrendering Self

It is so easy to get wrapped up playing the world's game of comparisons. It is all to easy to become compulsive in the need for approval especially if you are like me.  You see, one of my love languages is words of affirmation and subtly I can fall into the trap of measuring my value by how others perceive me or worse yet, how I think they perceive me. "Do they really like me, am I doing a good job at work, does my family really love me and on and on it goes.
All of these questions are fueled by insecurities and insecurities that go unchecked become self absorption. Gifts and talents are used more for human affirmation than worship of the gift giver. Trying to please others, measuring self worth based on praise and approval is exhausting and a sure fire path to disappointment.

The awesome thing is, and the thing that makes it possible to surrender self, is that God sees me through a lens called Jesus. Herein lies my true worth and when I really get a hold of that truth, I can make the most of opportunities to serve God without the need for human praise.  It's not always easy and I for one will always have to keep and eye on my old insecurities and reign them in when they show themselves. This journey is a constant "remembering" of what I know to be true. This I know... God loves me, He values me, He delights in me and the same is true for you so relax, let God use you and be thankful for the opportunity to do so.

Guard your heart

Proverbs 4:23 says "Above all else guard your heart".  Did you ever wonder why this is so important, I've thought about it off and on over the course of time and today I was reading "Soul Satisfaction" by Debra Evans and came upon what I think is one of the best explanations of the importance of guarding the heart. Let me share it with you.
"Over the years I learned that my heart holds the keys to revealing wonder and obscuring deception, transferring treasure and stockpiling venom, imparting love and absorbing evil......our hearts carry our most intimate histories, a life time ledger of passion and aggravation, gratitude and remorse, motives and meanings, rapture and loss.
Even though God has implanted an enduring desire for eternity in our hearts (Eccl 3:11), our earthbound status urges us to satisfy our soul's hunger with mirage-like substitutes. When we do, our deepest desires remain exasperatingly unfulfilled. We cannot find soul satisfaction- and by extension, our true identity, in anything or anyone but God.
It is easy to see how this all-too-familiar cycle starts spinning out of control: our lingering hunger propels us toward overdoing it -over-managing, over-eating, over-spending, over-nurturing, over-working, over-thinking, over-imagining, over-ministering, over-exercising, over-estimating, over-controlling, over-you name it.
Meanwhile our appetites stimulate our unfulfilled desire for gratification. So we end up wanting more. Once our hidden cravings receive enough pseudo nourishment and random reinforcement our desires grow more intense until, voila'.....

an impulsive sideways glance may unintentionally become a recurring thought pattern, which becomes a perceived need, which becomes a convincing rationale, which becomes a persistent focus, which becomes a routine habit, which becomes a fixated compulsion, which becomes and addictive dependency."


Does the subtlety of this hit you the way it did me?  It really got me thinking.....