Your Love Encounter with God (Part 1)
/Right now, thanks to my Church,
The Well on Bayview in Toronto, Ontario
, I'm doing the
Leadership Development Program, Level 1 (LDP1)
developed and delivered in Christ by the
Bethel Church in Redding California
. This month, we're building a
culture of Risk and Faith
into our lives. Today, I'm listening to Chris Gore's session,
"Today is a Great Day for a Miracle"
. He really confirmed what God has been saying to me, and it’s given me the courage to share it with you in this 2-part series: 1 – Your Love Encounter, and 2 – Others’ Love Encounter through You.
What Keeps You Busy?
Part 1
of this blog post is focused on
Your Love Encounter with God.
We can't share an overflow of something that isn't in us. How many of us are caught up in the "action" of loving God? We’re
results-oriented
or
task-oriented
in our prayer lives – that is, if our tasks even give us time for prayer. I mean,
“the laborers are few and the harvest is plenty”
, and that’s our job – right? How satisfied would you be with a prayer life where you just had to spend time
saying "God, I Love You" and hearing that back?
Source:
http://lovecoversall-godislove.blogspot.ca/2014/05/your-love-encounter-with-god-part-1.html
Full Disclosure
This is the walk that God has called me to. I have spent my whole life in a
performance-based relationship
with my God in Christ, the Lover of my Soul in the Holy Spirit, my Redeemer. For the past
five (5) years,
however, God has been pulling out all the stops to try to get me to understand that (
)
"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."
I know it in my head, but when all around you (even at Church) the call is "Do", "Do", "Do",
that head knowledge is never translated to reality.
For the past 2-3 years,
however, My Beloved Father in heaven has begun to, in a number of ways,
tie my hands
so I would not be able to do anything.
Literally
– anxiety attacks that made me unable to move even my tongue,
financially
– where I have nothing to tithe or pay my bills,
emotionally
– where I am unable to forgive or manage my anger or fear. My mind, naturally, ran to, "where have I sinned to cause this", but God reminded me that I had forgotten that I have to
put first things first
(
).
Funny, even as I'm writing this, God is reminding me to put first things first, again – His Love. This is the
verse of the day
on BibleGateway.com (
)
"The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing."
Love is the Gospel.
What is a Love Encounter with God?
It looks different for everyone.
When you wake up and God says quite simply
"I Love You",
and you hear it and feel it in your bones. When you walk down the street and God interrupts your thoughts with
a flower, a cloud shape, a smiling face
in a sea of serious ones - just to remind you that
He loves you "just because".
When in tough circumstances you're so filled with the certainty of His Love that you know in your every fiber that
"all is well".
You know that
you're walking in His Love – it's never just one (1) encounter.
That is what God wants from You – Love Relationship with Him. That's what He wants from everyone, and so that is what we're all called to share. Everything else will come after we know His Love.
Healing, encouragement, getting others to come to Christ, all those
results
are God's responsibility. Yours is to bring His Love to people, but
only once you know His Love,
yourself
.
We all know the
1 Corinthians 13
definition of Love, but
do you know verses 1-3
(
)? No matter how much you
Do,
if you do not first overflow with Love,
whose work are you doing? Yours or God's?
My Prayer for You
I pray that you have a powerful encounter with God's Love today, all week, and that every void in your heart is filled with this Love, to overflow! This I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our LORD, through the intercession of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
(See
for Others' Love Encounter through You.)
