He asks us to LOVE....

God has been working in my heart in incredible ways over the past 12 months.  He has taken me to places I didn't quite know I could go.  He is challenging me ... STRETCHING me to think 'outside the box' in so many ways.  It is exciting, scary, hopeful, and incredibly crazy all at the same time... to take some very radical steps in the direction God is calling you to go.

As I spend time in His word, soaking up all that I can - I am amazed at the reoccuring theme... He LOVES ME!  I have grown up in church my whole life... singing the song "Jesus Loves Me This I Know"... but did I ever FULLY understand how MUCH He loves ME?  How often do we go through our day not stopping to think about what a gift each day is... how important every detail is to HIM!  I am realizing more and more that it truly is NOT ABOUT ME... but ALL ABOUT HIM.  Such a freeing feeling to refocus my thoughts and energy on ETERNAL things and not on all the 'stuff' I so easily get bogged down with.  It truly is a DAILY dying to myself and making much more of HIM and bringing HIM glory!

I have been doing alot of reading lately... Living Naked by Jeff Bogue, Radical by David Platt and now I am waist deep in Crazy Love by Francis Chan.  If you can read those books and not see anything in your life that needs to be completely changed....UNBELIEVEABLE!  I process and filter everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, completely different now.  'Things' have little importance to me ... serving, giving, loving.... mean everything.  I was hit between the eyes as I read chapter 5 this weekend.  Chan was pointing out that in 1 Corinthians 13:2-3 according to God we are here to LOVE.  There isn't really much else that matters.... God commands us to LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART... and to LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF... PERIOD!  That's it!

How many times have I heard that but not really stopped to process what that means?  Everything else falls away from those two commands.  As I read the following passage I was SO challenged.... is THIS what LOVE looks like in MY life?

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends....faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

... I would have to say I have a lot of work to do.  It is a DAILY pursuing of Christ!  I don't know where this journey will take our family, but I do know that God is moving in MIGHTY ways...  

Hope

"Hope means - to wait with expectation"

I was reading in Hebrews 4 the other day.

Hebrews 4:14-16

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet was without sin.  Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. 

As I read this passage in my Bible, I glanced over at the margin where there was a short 'thought' from one of the contributors.  It was so encouraging...

Hope is a precious gift of our salvation.  According to Hebrews 6:19, "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure."  While we can "hope" that circus performers don't fall and that our kids don't spill their soda, we must remember that our only reliable hope is in what we cannot see or control:

the outrageous faithfulness of God

Our responsibility to him as his children is to study his character so we will know, without a doubt, that whatever way he deals with our circumstances in life, it's the right way.  Even when things don't work out the way we planned or desired, he is all-knowing, all-loving, the beginning and the ending.

Hope is acting on the conviction

that despite what we see with the natural eye,

God is working in the spiritual realm

to accomplish his perfect will in our lives.

His hope does not disappoint!

- Thelma Wells  (Women of Faith Study Bible)

WOW.... I was blown away by those words.

When it seems that I am struggling with 'waiting' on the Lord and his timing in my life,

I HAVE to hang on to the HOPE that he promises. 

Today I was reading my daily devotional e-mail from Proverbs 31 Ministries

entitled "Dare to Hope"

... do you sense a theme in my life right now?

Ok, God... what is it you are trying to pound into me again and again??

Wendy Pope was talking about Jeremiah and the 'hopeless situation' he found himself in.

In Lamentations 2&3 it talks about how he cried tears till he had no more left to cry.  What brought him out of this pit and to a place of expectancy?  She mentioned four things that Jeremiah remembered about his covenant from the Lord....

• His unfailing love for him
• His new mercies meant for him
• His never ending faithfulness toward him
• His inheritance due him

In her devotional she stated the quote I have at the top of this post -

"Hope means to wait with expectancy"

I LOVE IT... 

focusing each day on God's mercies that are new every morning...waiting with great expectancy, knowing that God's way is the PERFECT WAY for my life..

Thank you Lord for reminding me in so many different ways that I need to WAIT on YOU with great EXPECTANCY and HOPE!

loving his faithfulness....