Love

I loved my morning devotional today.

I thought I would share it with you.


2007/05/11

Loving Out The Fear

by Jon Walker

All of you should be of one mind, full of sympathy toward each other, loving one another with tender hearts and humble minds. (1 Peter 3:8 NLT)

God enables us to love the fear out of one another.
We drive fear from our families and friends by loving one another so supportively that every one feels safe inside the group (1 John 4:18). This safety allows us to bring our humanity into the open, including all our pain and joy, our ups and downs, our victories and defeats.

It means you give to others the same uncommon safety Christ gives you – to be real, to be sad, to be messed up and confused, yet to be loved.

God challenges us to create a Christ-community where we love like our lives depend upon it (1 Peter 1:22) and where we can each “live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28)
We’re to weep as one and celebrate as one, caring for each other equally (1 Corinthians 12:25-26) as we comfort and confront, warm and warn, cherish and challenge within an atmosphere of supportive safety.

Loving the fear out of each other requires that we develop:

Tender hearts – We give support to each other because God gives us support, and we’re to encourage others with the encouragement we receive from him. (2 Corinthians 1:4)

In the New Testament, the word ‘support’ can literally mean “to increase one another’s potential.” (Romans 14:19 NJB) We strengthen one another by extending love, instead of fostering fear, and we do that by offering relationships that are safe and sympathetic.

Humble minds –True humility focuses on the worth of others. We understand our value in Christ, and we understand that God shapes each of us for a unique purpose.

Godly eyes – Loving the fear out of our family and friends – in fact, loving the fear out of the world – means we see others for what they can be, not for what they appear to be now. Jesus called Peter a rock when the fisherman was still acting on impulse (Matt. 16:18), and God called Gideon a mighty man of courage when he was hiding from the enemy among piles of grain. (Judges 6:11-12) God calls us to encourage and affirm each other (1 Thessalonians 5:11), seeing those around us in terms of their purpose and mission in life.

So what?
God enables us to love the fear out of one another. You can love the fear out of others, and you can allow the fear to be loved out of you.

We exhibit tender hearts when we say to one another:

It’s OK to have a bad day.·

It’s OK to be tired.·

It’s OK to admit your mistakes.·

It’s OK to say your marriage is failing.·

It’s OK to confess your addiction.· It’s OK to share you’re scared.·

It’s OK to want a day away from your toddler.·

It’s OK to grieve this loss.·

It’s OK to doubt, to be confused, to cry.

We exhibit humble minds when we say to one another:

It’s OK to be happy you got a new car.

It’s OK to celebrate that you got a huge raise.

It’s OK to joyfully tell us you lost 17 pounds.

It’s OK to say you won the sales competition.

It’s OK to shout “Hallelujah!” because God’s presence in your life is so good.

It’s OK to tell us these things because we will be as happy for you as if these blessings had come to us, and we will join you in hearty celebration.

© 2007 Jon Walker. All rights reserved.
Jon Walker is a pastor-advocate living in Southern California and the former pastor of communications at Saddleback Church.

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TrustLight

This is a devotional I recieve from Purpose Driven Life. Written by John Fischer, like everthing else lately things seem to ring a mighty bell with what is going on in my life. Especially the asking for help part.


January 10, 2007

‘I thirst’by John Fischer


“Please give me a drink.” (John 4:7)


We worship a God who became a vulnerable human being. Superman took kryptonite. Samson let his hair be cut. Jack Frost relinquished his wintry powers to become the town tailor. Jesus got thirsty. It’s a story that is played out not only in history, but in fantasy, legend, and mythology – someone with supernatural powers gives up those powers to become human and it is always done for one reason: love. That was God’s reason. “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” (Romans 5:8)


And yet Jesus did more than just come to die. He also came to live as a human being. And that’s how it came to be that the God who made the heavens and the earth, including the clouds that bring water to a thirsty land, wound up at the well of Jacob asking a Samaritan woman for a drink. She had something he needed. He gave her worth by asking her for it. Due to tradition and culture, he should have had nothing to do with this woman. As it turned out, he ended up revealing to her his identity as the Messiah –something he did not do that directly to anyone for the rest of his ministry on earth.


Love always makes you vulnerable. There’s no way you can love and not expose yourself in some way or give something up. Love and need go together. God’s love compelled him to do what he did because that very love created in him a need for us. By creating us he also created in himself a place for us, and that need was reflected many times through the life of Christ.
Jesus Christ didn’t die for us because it made for good theology, he died for us because he loved us, lost us to sin, and gave himself up to buy us back. By doing this, he had to become vulnerable to the very system he created, that we might see how true love behaves. There is a death in love, and that death is the death of self. Jesus died to love us; we die as well in order to love and serve others. And part of that is in being vulnerable.


Sometimes the best thing we can do for someone is ask for help. Jesus asked the woman for a drink and three years later, he was asking for the same thing from the cross –symbolic of the vulnerability he placed himself into for the whole human race. Being vulnerable to those you love is a big part of love itself."




Humility comes to mind. For me, it is very difficult to ask for help and lately I have had to ask for it a lot. Not financial so much but just to be trusting to others to get the advice I have really needed recently. It is never easy to trust when you feel you have been betrayed by people whom you should never expect betrayal from.

TrustLight


Larry