You Have A Choice

You know what the number one thing I am TIRED of satan convincing people of? That they don't have a choice! I'm tired of finding person after person who is so blinded by their situation, or their upbringing, or their past, or their present, or their mistakes, or their life style, or the things that have been done to them....or even their own sin, that they cannot see past IT. I capitalized "it" because that is exactly what satan does. He gets us to not be able to see past "IT". "IT" can be something different for each of us too. IT can seem like a mountain to you when it is magnified by the enemy. IT can seem impossible to you when he gets you to put all of your focus on IT. IT can seem like the biggest thing you have ever faced...UNTIL....See, "it" can seem impossible until you give "it" to God. Then you will see the truth of how small "it" was in the all powerful eyes of God.
There is a great truth out there that we have all heard at one time or another in our life. It's a catchy little phrase that the enemy has turned into something cute that people say when life gets hard for someone and you don't know what else to say to them. It has become as common as the phrase on our money which states "in God we trust". Yes, it says it on our money, but that doesn't mean that we trust God one bit. And the phrase that I'm referring to is another one that we say, but that doesn't mean we believe it. And that is "NOTHING is too big for God". We will tell people that, and then we will face something in our own life and forget those words ever came out of our mouth. Along with that is "nothing is impossible for God", or "I can do all things through Christ....". We know those phrases, we use those phrases, but are those phrases etched onto the inside of your heart? Are those the phrases you say to satan when he tries to show you the circumstances around you? Whatever your "it" is today that he has convinced you is "too big"....have you reminded him how big your God is?
That lie....that sickening, entrapping lie that satan loves to use against us can be shut down by us realizing and living like NOTHING is too big for God. And when we realize that...really realize it, then we will realize "I had a choice this whole time and I couldn't even see it".
The enemy will try to get us to stay in our mistakes, our troubles, our hardships...actually anything that holds us back from the fullness that God has for us, because he knows the moment we realize the power of God over our situations, we will break free from "it". Yes, sometimes that means some undoing of things you have done to get yourself where you are, but again, that's a choice. No matter what the enemy has convinced you that you are stuck in, don't believe it. You are not his slave and you are not a slave to any situation, circumstance or sin that has ever entered into your life!
Romans 8:12 - 17 says this....
12 Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. 13 For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15 So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” 16 For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. 17 And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.

I don't know about you, but when I read a passage like that I cannot just read it once. So I invite you to go back and read that again...and again...and again if necessary so it will sink deep into your mind, and your heart. Every lie the enemy has ever told you about who you are, whose you are, how you are, what you are, what makes you the way you are, and his personal favorite....how you will never change.....All of those lies are blown away by this passage in Romans. You have no obligation to sin, or it's urges. And if you choose to allow it to control you and give into sin, it brings death. But when you realize the power that God has put in you, the power of the Holy Spirit, you WILL say "I am an overcomer!". I am adopted by God. I am just as much His as Jesus was. I am not above suffering because of that, but I am above being trapped by the things that cause me to suffer. 

Yes, Jesus came to pay a price for our lives to make a way for us to be in relationship with God, but please let's not forget that He also came to show us HOW to live. Let His life be an example of how to make the right choices, live in a way that pleases God, and show the enemy that he has no more control over you than he did Jesus...and he never will!

God, Thank You for Your TRUTH! May it pierce the hearts and minds of people today who feel trapped by the enemy. Let them see that they DO have a choice, and YOU God are that choice. I pray lives will be changed and set free....and that YOU God will receive ALL the glory and honor for it. In Jesus name, Amen.

Limitless Trust

Which is harder for you to accept when you think about God...limitless love, or limitless trust? It can be hard to wrap our heads around sometimes. That God loves us despite....well, despite ourselves. Despite our sin, despite how many times we went directly against Him, despite how many times we repented, and then turned around and did that very thing again. Yet He loves us...with limitless love. And because of that, this God who loves us beyond compare would only want the absolute best for us, right? Then why is our limitless trust in Him so difficult?
As humans we are used to putting our trust in things with a condition. If something looks study enough, we might walk out on it. If something seems safe enough, we might try it. If someone is a very very close friend to us, we may place our trust in them. But with each one of those examples there is always an "if". But with God there cannot be an "if". The trust we have in God is "because", not "if". Because God is faithful, because God is true, because of God's love.....because of all of these things, He IS trustworthy.
Fear is the number one thing that stops us from trusting. Fear causes doubt to set in, and doubt causes us to "be careful". In some physical scenarios in life God gave us those instincts to keep us wise, but those instincts were never meant to be used against God Himself. We should not reason if we should trust God in a situation, we just should trust Him. Any time I have written about trust I have referenced Proverbs 3:5. To me it is virtually impossible to explain the kind of trust we should have in God without using it. It says "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding". It is one simple sentence the tells us exactly what God wants, and what He expects. It is His way of saying to us, "when you come to Me about anything, you leave your own understanding outside of the conversation". And to explain why this must be, we look to Isaiah 55:8, which is God telling us "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways". And this is exactly why when we describe trust in God it has to be limitless. No matter what the situation is, when we go to Him and lay it down at His feet and surrender it to Him, we can trust that IF we do as He asks of us, then He will do things in a way that are best for you, and bring honor to Him. We sometimes forget about that last part too....actually we forget about most of that. He is going to give us correction and direction when we ask for His help, and He is going to expect us to listen and obey. Then He is going to do things that are good for you, even if you don't get it in the moment. Then He is going to want you to make sure He gets the glory and the honor for it. All of these things are key in trusting God. We cannot go to Him with a selfish trust. By that I mean, you can't tell Him what the outcome needs to look like, you can't say things like "oh God if you do this I will.....", and you can't only praise Him when it's starting to look good for you. You praise Him all the way through because doing that IS a form of trust. When you can say "God, I can't even see the light at the end of the tunnel in this situation, but I know it's there, and I know you are leading me to it, and therefore I praise Your name", then He can see your heart is in the right place.
I don't know what the situation might be in your life that God is trying to show you He can be trusted with, but I do know you really can trust Him. So today I am encouraging you to lay it down at His feet, and tell yourself that is where it stays until He's sees you through it. Don't put conditions on it, don't put time frames on it, and don't only praise Him when it looks good. Praise Him, trust Him and rebuke all thoughts of doubt that try to creep in. Then allow Him to show you just how limitless both His love and His trust truly is.
God, thank You for both Your limitless love and trust. Thank You that nothing in this world compares to what You have to offer us. I pray today that someone will give their trust over to You, and experience Your amazing faithfulness and goodness. Give us spiritual eyes Lord, and wisdom to see past any fear of our human understanding, and just trust Your ways. In Jesus name, Amen

No More Lies...Who Did God Create You To Be?

Do you know what one of the most dangerous lies we can buy into is? Ironically enough it doesn't matter if you are saved or not, it's the one thing the enemy tries to get everyone to believe. It is that you are something other than what God created you to be. That's right, the greatest lie the enemy can get us to believe is that we are something (or someone) other than what God made us to be. And that is the number one reason we are living in a world of mass confusion right now.
What is the one thing that is being preached around the U.S. right now? (and I don't mean in the church) It's this, do what makes you happy, be who you want to be, do what you want to do..and if the people around you have a problem with it, then guess what, it's their problem. That is the mentality that is being driven in the minds and hearts of the younger generation today. Problem is, with social media being at an all time high today, even that is another lie. People are being one way on social media, another way in front of their friends, another way in front of family, and another way when it's just them alone in a room. We are living in a time of major identity crisis, and it's all because we (as a people) have lost touch with living out the life God created for us, finding the purpose He designed us for...and understanding the peace and satisfaction that comes from that. See that is why the enemy doesn't want us to discover this...because he knows there is peace and contentment in finding out who God created you to be that can't be found anywhere else. It doesn't lead to a path of confusion, frustration, lies, bitterness and anger. It doesn't lead to having to be one person in front of one group of people, and another person in front of others. And it doesn't lead to rejection! Oh don't get me wrong, when you are who God wants you to be you might be rejected by some, but it will be those who are in need of experiencing His love and His truth too. And instead of feeling all of those things I just mentioned, you will be driving by deep compassion to pray for them, love them, forgive them and a hope that they too will discover who God created them to be. Finding who you are in Christ leads to deep discover that comes only from spending personal time with Him. It can be a journey, or it can be a discovery. But I can promise you He will reveal it to you. And all the lies that you have been fed by this world of who you should or shouldn't be, they will fall off of you like heavy wet clothes. Have you ever been caught in a rain storm? I mean like a downpour where ALL of your clothes, even your shoes, ended up soaking wet. And what is the one thing everyone always says when they get out of that? "I can't wait to get out of these clothes". That is what it's like to take off who this world has tried to get you to believe you are, and put on who God created you to be. It is like the feeling of those dry warm clothes...so refreshing, so comforting, and so renewing. It feels right because the One who made you is now completing His creation.
Genesis 1:27 tells us we were created in His image. Jeremiah 29:11 tells us that He has plans for us that have a future and a hope. Jeremiah 1:5 says that those plans and our "appointment" started before we were even formed in the womb. 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us that when we come to Christ we become a new creation (stripping off what the world put on us). And 1 Peter 2:9 says we are a chosen race, royal, made holy, a people for His own possession, that we may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. I don't know about you, but when I read that I KNOW I was created for way way more than what this world has tried to get me to believe. I have been called to walk out of the darkness of sin and into the marvelous light of His plans.
Today, if you have bought into the lies of the enemy about who you are, then I invite you to have a talk with your Creator. And just like Jeremiah 19:13 promises, if you seek Him, you will find Him...and He will show you who HE created you to be.
God, thank You that You already had plans for us before we were even here. Please God, help each of us to seek You until we discover what those plans are. Destroy the lies of the enemy that is attaching the identity of people today and may Your truth be made known. May lives be forever changed and may they find the peace that ONLY comes from You. In Jesus name, Amen.

Tested For A Purpose

No matter how old you are, I'm sure we all can recall what it was like to take a test in school. For some that may have  been just a few days ago, and for others (including myself), that may have been many years ago. But I would guess that we all can remember that feeling of being testing. Hoping you are prepared, and hoping you pass. Now, take all of that and imagine that when the test was done, the teacher just took all the tests from everyone and threw them away. Wouldn't you hate that. To have gone through the mental preparation, the stress, and the application of what you've learned, just to have it go for nothing. If you did good on that test you might be more upset then you would be if you didn't do so good. But no matter what, you would hate the fact that you just had to go through a test for nothing.
Each and every person that walks the face of this earth are going to go through tests. And by tests, I don't mean temptations, but trials and tests. You might ask, does God test us? I believe so. I believe God will put us into situations (or allow us to face them) where we have choices to make. Those choices can either reflect Him in us, or they can show us the areas of our heart and soul that need more of Him. And the reason I mentioned the teacher throwing away the test in the opening of this blog is because what a shame it would be to go through a test and not even get what God wanted us to get out of it. But sadly enough it happens every single day. As humans we have this tendency of taking pride it getting through something on our own. Even the saying "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" was created because we think it is better to say we did it on our own. In fact, I looked up the true meaning of that phrase and this is what is said..."This impossible task is supposed to exemplify the achievement in getting out of a difficult situation by one's own efforts". The funny thing about that definition is that it even says "the impossible task". When tests and trials come our way we should see it as impossible to get through it on our own. The very fact that the trial is in front of you may be there to humble you to say, "I can't do this alone God". He wants us to need Him, but I think even more than that, He wants us the KNOW we NEED Him. So when we face something, no matter how simple or difficult it is, God is there with His hand out saying, "will you take it?". The pessimist would say, "see, He is just setting us up to fail if we don't take it", but I love that argument because I always counter it with, "is it His fault or yours if you didn't take the help He offered you?".
God is a good God, and one of the things that makes Him so good is that He sent His Son to die for us, then gave us free will to love Him back or not. And in tests and trials He gives us free will to turn to Him or not. And we all know the truth, if we got ourselves in something, then out of shame we tend to turn to Him less. But if the situation came at us through a hardship or a situation out of our control, then we will tend to cry out to Him for help. This is the mindset we must get past. God is ALWAYS there, and He sent the Holy Spirit to help us....to help us before, during and after the test. See those situations we got ourselves into, He was there trying to show a way out before we got into it. Those situations we find ourselves in the middle of, He is there to guide us through it. And those situations that happen to us that may require healing afterwards, well He is there to help us heal. There isn't a time when He is absent, but there are plenty of times when we just don't look for Him. And that really is the whole point of anything we go through, to help us learn to lean on, trust and praise Him.
Trials and tests will always be a part of life. One might be as simple as an opportunity to help someone, and God just wants to see if you will, and another might be much larger and require much more faith and trust. But in both He is there wanting to stretch you, grow you, or get you to see the areas you need to work on with Him. He does not allow us to go through things to see if we will fail....EVER.....He allows us to go through things to see if our hearts are really His.
Today, no matter how big or small the thing you face is, don't let it all be for nothing in the end. Give it to God, allow Him to stretch you, grow you, and yes, even teach you as you go through it. I promise that in the end, what He can produce in you will be much better than anything you can do on your own. And then, when others see you giving Him the glory, the test was not just for you, but others will benefit from it too.
God, it sounds crazy to say these words, but thank You for the trials, tests and even hardships that You have helped me through. Without them, I would not be who you have made me today. Holy Spirit please help people see God's hand offering help to them as they go through things. Please destroy the pride within us as humans, and help us to humble ourselves and look to YOU for the help we NEED. And then help us to glorify You during and after the tests we face. In Jesus name, Amen

The Character That Defines You

If people were asked to describe your character, what do you think they would say? Do you think about that as you move about your day to day life? If not, you should. And I don't mean that you should be overly concerned by how you look to people. But I do mean you should be concerned about what they see in you...do they see God?
In 1 Samuel 16:7 God said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart". See, sometimes we get too wrapped up in getting people to think something about us, instead of being who God called us to be, and letting that show. God sees deep inside our heart, and he knows if we are trying to impress man, or Him. Of course we all like to be thought of highly by our peers, but I think when our character reflects God, He will take care of the rest. Character, by definition, means "the way someone thinks, feels, and behaves: someone's personality". Well, have you ever got to know someone and the one thing that made them less attractive to you was their personality, their character? It happens. A person's heart can show through and make them a beautiful person, or it can rob them of their beauty. And it can't be an act either. When your character is being "performed" instead of created by God, it will eventually show through. We have to ask God to build our character. We have to allow Him to use the situations that we face in life to form our character. If we don't, then the world we live in will form it for us. The hardships we face can create behaviors in us, and they will eventually come out of us. Behaviors that are less than honorable to God. But when we face something with the strength and character that God can give us, not only will it help us, but it will be seen by others. And we will show them what it looks like to go through something WITH God.
There will always be the people in your life who are going to form their opinion of you based on your past, based on the mistakes you've made, or even based on unforgiveness in their own heart. In those situations all we can do is be who God called us to be. We cannot try to "win them over" or walk in condemnation. We right the wrongs that we can, we love and forgive, and we allow God to guide and direct our choices, our feelings and our behavior. Then we leave it up to Him to work on the other person's heart.
Romans 12:2 tells us "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God". So trust me when I say that I know a lot of what I'm saying doesn't sound like reality, but it IS possible. God tells us in Romans NOT to be conformed to this world...that means in our thoughts and our actions...and our character. He CAN and WILL transform our heart and renew our minds IF we let Him. He can transform our old character, no matter how ugly it was, into something new and beautiful. It is His desire for us to reflect Him, and that always starts in our minds and our heart before it flows out through our words and our actions. Otherwise, they are just empty acts to make yourself look good. And that is not what God wants to see out of you and me....He desires to draw us closer to Him and make us more like Him. He desires for people to describe Him when they are describing the character they see in you.
God, thank You for continuing to work on us! Thank you for never giving up on us, and always trying to pull the good out of us. Holy Spirit please help those who have allowed the things of this word to create flaws in their character. Help them to look to you for the things they should think upon, feel and behave like. And as You transform us, may our lives speak to those who need more of You. In Jesus name, Amen

Demonstrating Jesus....

Have you ever had someone do something to you that was completely unexpected? When you read a sentence like that you can take it one of two ways. Your mind can go to a time when someone really hurt you in a way you never expected, or you can go to a time when someone did something amazing for you that you didn't expect. But I would bet that if we really put some thought to it, it's the times when you received something good that you didn't expect that stand out the most. Yes, those painful memories do sting, but the joy that comes from thinking of a time when an unexpected great thing happened, well they can bring a smile to your face every time you think about them.
So how many times have you yourself reacted in a way that someone least expected? Shamefully I'm sure we have a negative answer to that question too, but today I want to focus on the positive. How many times did you allow Jesus to give you the strength to not treat someone the way (in our human minds) we thought they deserved to be treated? Ever made a mistake while driving that was a complete accident, and it caused another driver to become very upset? Ever received their hash words through your window or the famous finger gesture letting you know just how upset you made them? You had 2 choices in that moment, revenge, or demonstrate Jesus.
There are many times throughout our day that we will be given the choice to do the unexpected. It might be to calm down an angry customer at your job, it might be to defuse a fight with a friend or family member, or it might be to let something slide and show someone grace when they completely expect you to give them "what they deserve". And each time we choose the correct response, the Godly response, we demonstrate Jesus. Sure it is great to tell people about Jesus, but how much louder are our actions when we can show people Jesus?
I know it might sound crazy, but what if the reaction of ticking someone off while driving was you rolling down your window and saying "sorry, that was totally my fault. I didn't mean to cut you off...have a great day". How much could that one sentence change the other person's day? They story they told at work that morning could go from "this jerk cut me off..." to "you are not going to believe how this person apologized to me this morning...". It really is a choice. And not only can it change the way the receiving party feels, but it can change you. To take away the chance for the enemy to get you act in an ungodly way, to take away his chance to follow that up with guilt and shame, and to give God a chance to show you how good it does feel to make the right choice. Not to mention, you have demonstrated Jesus to someone else. And you may never know the effects that has on them. And to be honest, we can't worry about it either. We can't base how we will handle that the next time by how the person reacted to us. Sure, you might show someone grace and they may still show you anger. You might speak kind words and receive harsh ones in return. Any time we choose the right way, we just have to know we did the right thing. We can't expect, or base it on what we receive back. The important part is that God saw you honor Him. He saw the motive of your heart, and He is the one who will bless you for it.
I can't even imagine the amount of times God gives us in one day to represent and demonstrate Him. Are we gong to get them right every single time, probably not. But is that a reason to not try, absolutely not. We thank God for the times that we received help from the Holy Spirit in our time of need, and we ask God to forgive us for the times we slipped up. Then we humbly ask for His correction and direction in the future.
I want to close today's blog with this scripture. We have to remember that every choice we make for God has to be driven by love....love for Him, and love for others...but always LOVE.
If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

God, thank You for all the chances we get to represent you and demonstrate Jesus to others. The fact that You allow us to show others Your goodness is a privilege, and may we never forget that. Please Holy Spirit help us in our time of need when the enemy is trying to push out buttons, and give us the strength to use love as our motivation to make the right choice. In Jesus name, Amen.  

We Serve a Sovereign God

Often I have written about our trust in God. How it really is a must in order to say that we have faith in God. It's really is hard to say you trust anything that you don't have faith in. And it's hard to say you have faith in anything you don't trust. But when you say you have faith in God, does your trust have limits?
Throughout the history of mankind there have been times when God was fully trusted, and there have been times when people put limits on how much they trusted Him. When Moses led the Israelite's out of bondage God showed them that He was fully trustworthy, but He also showed them that He was fully sovereign. And it is one thing to put our trust in things that can still fail us, but it is an entirely different thing to put our trust in a God who is sovereign. Sovereign, by the dictionary's definition means "supreme power or authority". So by it's very definition there really isn't anything on this earth we can put our trust in the way we should God, but sometimes we still doubt. I'm not pointing that out to make anyone feel bad. It's our nature to doubt. It is the one thought or emotion that the enemy tries to play us with the most. It's the thing we have to fight through when things look dim around us, and it's the thing that we can beat with HOPE. And as it says in Hebrews 11:1, "Faith is the confidence in what we hope for...". God knew we would face doubt, and that is why He gave us faith and hope, to beat doubt. But He also gave us something else, His sovereignty. You see God is the supreme power and authority over everything. And if there was ever any doubt in that, then He proved it when Jesus beat death. That is one of the reasons that the story of Jesus is so important. Not only does it show us just how much God loved us, but it also shows us just how powerful God is. Sadly enough that's something that is often forgotten in today's times. But again, we are not the first people to do this. If you go back to the Israelite people, they too forgot how to fully trust God. And they just got done watching him split the sea open so they could walk across it. They watched Him send down food from the sky for them to live off of. And they watched Him put a cloud and fire in the sky to guide them on their journey, but they allowed a place for doubt to come in. And because He is sovereign, God allowed them to wonder around for 40 years before they received His gift to them. They lost the vision that what He promised them was going to be far better than what they had. They complained and talked about going back to where they came from because they we losing trust in Him. Does this sound familiar? Haven't we all done this at one time or another in our life. Wondering where God is taking us, and IF it will be better than where He brought us from. Like God would ever take us to something worse.....He doesn't do that. We do, we will take control and lead ourselves down paths we were never intended to go down, but again and again God will pick us up, dust us off, and put us back on the right path. A sovereign God who truly could do whatever He wanted with us, but He chooses to show us grace, mercy and love in our moments of ignorance or weakness.
We can't forget that we serve a sovereign God. We can't allow circumstances, heartache, and the evil and cruelness of this world to cause us to shift our thoughts to something other than His goodness and his sovereignty. He sees what we cannot see. He knows what we do not know. And He can do what we cannot do. And that is exactly why trusting Him is the wisest thing we can do, no matter what the circumstances tell us.
I don't know about you, but when I know that I have the ability to put all of must trust in an all powerful God, then that is exactly where I want it. You would never invest your money is something that was sure to fail, so don't do the same thing with your faith and trust. Invest it in God and leave it there. Just like a good financial investment, it has to mature and be left alone so it can increase. If you play the stock market you don't go yank your money out every single time things look rough. You have to ride it out and wait for things to look better again. Well again, if we can do that with our money, then lets do that with our faith. Put it ALL in God, and leave it invested there. Let it grow, let it mature and let God do things that only God can do. THEN, go tell others about every good thing that comes from that so you can help someone else do the same.
God, I can't thank You enough for being a trustworthy, faithful and sovereign God. I repent for any time I have allowed my own thoughts to convince me that I should put my trust in myself or anything else this world has to offer. Holy Spirit help us to tell others about how trustworthy and good you are, but not just with our words, but by the actions of our lives. In Jesus name, Amen

Expression Of Your Love

Love, and the expression of love, is such an interesting thing. As humans we all express our love in tons of different ways. And the things we choose to express our love for is very interesting as well. Some people struggle with showing love to another person, but they may not struggle showing love toward their favorite team, car, hobby, pet or so on. The struggle to show love usually comes from the way we were shown love as a child, or a deep hurt that took place at some point in our lives. However, I have personally witnessed God heal people who had the hardest time showing love, and it took place once they experienced His love.
The thing about God's love is that once you experience it, your heart gets opened up in a way that you didn't realize was possible. And trust me when I say, I'm not talking about going to church. Yes you can find God's love at church, and you should, but I am talking about "experiencing" God's love. Experiencing it in a way that the only thing your heart desires is to express it back to Him. For me this happened a couple of years ago when I went through a deliverance at the church I now attend. See I had "known" God all of my life. And I had even gone through years where I would say I was pretty close to Him, but more on a "pleasing Him" level, not a loving Him level. And the main thing I never realized was that His love wasn't conditional. At the most messed up time in my life He loved me more than words could describe. But I didn't even love myself, so it was impossible for me to understand how He could love me. But when I went through that deliverance I didn't just go through the motions, like I had been doing for so long. Instead, I truly experienced God. I felt Him, I felt His presence in the room and I FELT His love. I felt Him wrap His arms around me and say "of course I forgive you, I was just waiting for you to come to me and ask". I never felt condemnation like I expected. I never felt rejection like I deserved. I never felt like I wasn't good enough to be sitting there asking Him to cleanse me....I just felt loved. And it was in that very moment that I realized His love just set me free....like 100% free. Like that life I just stepped out of in the deliverance was dead and gone, and He would never remind me of that again. And the only thing I could think or feel in that moment was "all I want to do is love You back God". And so started the journey I have been on for the last 2 1/2 years. Not a journey of perfection, but a journey of putting Him first out of nothing but love for Him.
I told you all about my experience with God because I wanted to tell you that I was the person who struggled with love. I loved people in my life who "deserved" it. I did for those that I thought would do for me. I would say I loved, but I selfishly loved. I didn't understand how to love someone just because God would want me to, because I didn't even understand how He could love me. But now that I had experienced His love for me at a time when I did not deserve it, I now knew how He expected me to love others. Has it always been easy, no. Are there times when I have to go to Him and ask Him help me, or show me how to love this person, absolutely. But the difference is, now instead of choosing to hold back my love from someone, I am just choosing to lay it at Jesus' feet and let Him do it through me. It takes "me" out of the picture and grows me and stretches me in ways I couldn't even imagine.
1 John 4:8 tells us that "Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love". And I am here to tell you that I couldn't agree more with that verse. God is love, and loving Him and His ways is the ultimate expression of love. We can't say "I love God, but I don't love or respect His ways", it just doesn't work that way. When we fully love Him, we fully surrender to Him. We fully trust Him, and we know the freedom from sin that His ways have to offer us. Finding/fixing my relationship with God has made every other relationship in my life better. Why is that? Because no longer do I need someone to make me happy to love them...I just love them because I know God loves them. He loves them when they hurt Him, so I am called to do the same. He loves them when they disappoint Him, so I know I am called to do the same. He even loves them when they reject Him, so Yes....I am called to do the same.
If love has been a struggle for you, then allow the One who loves you the most to teach you how to love. Let Him show you how much He loves you, let Him teach you how to love yourself, and then let Him help you love others the way that He does. ALL things are possible with Him, if we only trust Him enough to let Him do ALL things through us.
God, thank You for your unconditional, undeserving, and unending love. I pray today that someone will receive that love in a way they never have. And I pray that someone will let You help them love others in a way they never have. Help us to get it right with You first, and then let You work through us. Your love changes everything, but most of all it changes us. So today I pray Your love will do the impossible in people's lives. In Jesus name, Amen