Joy and Love

-

Photo by Nat Arnett


"You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy." 1 Peter 1:8

When learning God's word we should feel joyful! Making studying, learning and sharing the word as a priority. It should never feel like a burden or dull to study scripture, because knowing God's love for us is amazing! As I have shared before when I told my family about my love and belief in God it brought me to tears both times. I was overcome with emotion, especially when I told my 14 year old, she hugged me and said she loved me. Which of course made me cry more, but it was a joyous loved filled cry and hug.

Love among myself and my children believe it or not is nothing compared to the love that God has for us. We are commanded in scripture to love God and to love each other, it is one of the most important commandments. So how do we show our love for God? We show it by longing for personal time with Him (reading His word and worshiping Him), by loving what He loves, hating what He hates, longing for His return and to keep His commandments. If you do not know what God loves, hates and commands then you must entrench yourself into the Bible, His word. This is what I am doing, I did not do it before and I ended up away from Him for over 18 years. That cannot ever happen again and to ensure that it does not I must read the word daily and compare things that I hear in the world back to scripture. 

"Three things will last forever-faith, hope and love-and the greatest of these is love" 
                                                                                                      1 Corinthians 13:13

Verses on Joy:                                                     Verses on Love:

Nehemiah 8:1-18                                                  Deuteronomy 6:4-5
Psalm 126:5-6                                                       Hosea 11:8-9
Isaiah 12:3                                                             John 21:15-17
Romans 15:13                                                       1 Corinthians 13:1-13
1 Corinthians 1:10-17                                           1 John 2:6-11
1 Peter 1:8

My prayer for you today is that you know the love of the Lord in your heart and soul. If you are a believer then dive deep into His word so you can know and do all things with joy, love and discernment. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

For My Daughter

-
Image
Photo by Penny Matthews I have two daughters, each of them is so different from the other, but they are both special gifts to me. It is with a heavy heart that I write today of my oldest and the internal pain she is under. Her pain comes out as rage, anger, hateful words and condescending remarks made towards all of us in our home. She has cut herself off from so many and wonders often why she feels so alone. She is in a vicious cycle of anger and sadness and refuses all attempts of help. In the past few years I have made every attempt to mend fences, heal wounds that I did not put there and try to be a peacekeeper. It was all pointless and upon reflection probably made things worse.  While my heart is still heavy, I know now that she has to remain in God's hands and that only He can "fix" this situation. Proverbs 22:6 says, "Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it." That is what I am attempting to do now through
Read more

Circles

-
Image
Photo by  Luis Miguel Martínez Bonilla   A few days ago I was reading a devotional and within that the author, Priscilla Shirer, told a story of a donkey that spent its life walking in a circle giving rides to little children at fairs. When this donkey was "retired" it went to spend the rest of its days in a huge, beautiful pasture. Instead of roaming around its new land it just walked in circles, because that is all it had ever known. The point of her analogy was to show us that as Christians we have been given a new life, and to question why we keep walking in the circles of unforgiveness, shame and guilt. "This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; an new life has begun!" 2 Corinthians 5:17 If you, in your heart, have accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, knowing that he died for our sins, then you are born again (made new). This should be exciting news! As believers, we are not called to remain in those circles of gu
Read more

Be A Comfort

-
Image
"I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all. shall windy words have and end? Or what provokes you that you answer? I also could speak as you do, if you were in my place; I could join words together against you and shake my head at you."  Job 16: 2-4 To say that I have had periods of deep mourning over the past two years would be an understatement. The sudden loss of my stepson followed a year later by the loss of my mother-in-law has been significant in my life. However, I know my grief is nothing in comparison to that of my husbands. His grief is much deeper than mine. My solitary role in all of it is to comfort him. It would do us no good for me to tell him anything about moving on, or as time passes it will get better. It would be similar to what Job's friends were doing and to say the least it was of no comfort to him. It is not my place to say any of that, the simple fact is I have no right to tell someone else how to grieve. As I have read throu
Read more