Living Up in God's Love towards others #1

There are women at Cornerstone Fellowship in Livermore, CA going through the WILD book and the WILD bible study right now. We have finished the first section and are now on Lesson 5, which is on Wild Women Loving Others.

This week’s blog will be dedicated to the women in the class, as we go through that subject a little piece at a time all week. If you are not in the class, get a WILD book ( A Different Kind of Wild: Is your faith too tame?) and join us, and download each weeks free podcast off of itunes or www.cornerstoneweb.org. Or, just log into the blog each day and digest the truth about loving others. Process it, challenge yourself with it, and allow God to speak to you about what in your life He is wanting to rearrange to make you more conformed into the image of His Son. Less of us, More of Him!

Today’s Truth: 1 John 1:9-11

“Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives int he light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know w here he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.”

Hate here is the Greek, miseo, which is to pursue with hatred or detest. That is strong isn’t it? Hate in our dictionary is to feel animosity, to have a distaste for.

None of us like to think we are women who “hate” anyone. We might just be “bugged” with them, bothered by something they did, disappointed. So, what leads us to the place of a complete distaste for someone?

There are many things but let’s just call out a few:

• They don’t like us. No one likes being disapproved of or judged, or the way it feels to be left out by someone. All of us want to be liked, and when we are not, we may begin to “hate” to some degree the person who is “making us feel” small.
• They have done something to “cross us” or upset us. It can be something large or small, doesn’t matter, but once we begin holding on to the “thing” that someone did or said to us that we did not appreciate, it can begin to form the seed of distaste and hate.
• We are secretly jealous of them. Hard to admit, but women are good at getting jealous of others, and not admitting it. This jealousy opens us up for every evil work in our heart and lives, and gives the devil a foothold in us.

Love is quite different than hate. Love here is agapao. which is the Greek word meaning, to have good will for and a preference towards good will towards someone, to wish them well. This is also from the word agape, which is God’s love, and to agapao someone, is to love them with Agape flowing in and through us. God’s love always believes the best in someone. God is love and has a preference towards people, not a hatred towards them.

How do we love someone who has crossed us, made us feel or look small, or that we are jealous of?

Confess your feelings to God

• Ask Jesus to work in your heart, making you open and willing to let go of the offense or the jealousy and competitiveness.
• Naming it and calling it what it is, is the first step towards pushing past the stuck place of “loving less” than God’s best for us.
• Pray for them ( Luke 6)
• Speak kindly about them
• Refuse to be critical
• Treat them as you would want to be treated ( even if it goes unnoticed)

And, if you don’t do this?

You will be in the DARK, and you will be blinded to things God might want to do in your life right now.

And, if you set your heart to love?

You will be in the LIGHT, and nothing will keep you from the full embrace of experiencing God. You will not stumble through your day with bitterness and ugliness. You will be lighter as you are in His Light.

Final thought:

If we want to walk with Jesus, we have to pay attention to walking in love. Even if…no one else around us is doing the same. Live according to WHO you are in Christ Jesus. Live Up in WHO he is making you to be today.

Today’s Prayer

Father, teach me to walk in the light as you are in the light. I confess that there are people I do not like much because I know they don’t like me. That is so carnal, immature but excused as being “normal” . Jesus, change my normal.