What is love?

What is Love?

Don’t you automatically start singing a song when you hear the line, What is love? Anyway, I am sitting here reading Romans 12, and a new subtitle labeled, LOVE, was above the next section of verses.

I must have read this 50 times before, but the Lord really spoke to me through it in a new way, or maybe I should say in a convicting way.

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil, cling to what is good…” To this I say, “yes Lord, got it.” I continue reading and God is speaking to my heart and showing me areas that need some, lets say, “improvement” but nothing really curling my toes quite yet.

Then it hits me. Verse 14, ” bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.” As usual, I have to go back and read it a few more times, noticing Paul said to Bless your enemies two times!

To this I say, “Ouch!! Yes Lord, I am listening. (with a quivering voice) Isn’t that a little unfair?” Then I keep reading, and you won’t believe it, verse 17, “Don’t repay evil for evil…” verse 19, 20 “Do not take revenge… on the contrary, if your enemy is hungry feed him…give him a drink.” Then finally verse 21, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Wow! So, this is sincere love. Love without hypocrisy. O God, make us true loving people.

As I was thinking of practical ways to apply these truths, here are a few God brought to mind:

1. Growing up as a minister’s kid and being in the ministry now, I know how brutal church people can be. So, when the nay sayers are calling out insults and complaints…don’t retaliate; pray, and bless.

2. If you are in a restaurant and the waitress has not exactly been in the serving mood. Instead of getting short with her, be kind, and leave them a tip anyway. Who knows what their day has been like. If you remain “in the spirit” your light will shine!

3. Or how about your peers or co-workers, seem to relentlessly try to hurt you. Instead of paybacks, love them sincerely, giving it to the Lord. After all the scripture clearly says revenge is the Lord’s, and the kindness will set their heads on fire!

In all things, let’s make a striving effort to LOVE SINCERELY(meaning without hypocrisy)!! And overcome evil with the GOOD!

Have you ever applied sincere love in your life even when it seemed unfair, and seen God take care of the mess?

In Christ,

Natalie

Crawling

WoW! We have just gotten back from an amazing week of leading worship.

We were leading worship for a FCA camp in St Simons, GA and God showed up! There is nothing like hundreds of people shouting praises to GOD together with hands raised. To say the least, I had chills nonstop!  I want to thank everyone who was there for making our experience so wonderful. Glory to God!

As most of you know, David and I have a little girl who is nine months old, and is the joy of our lives. She started crawling this past week at camp, and has a peculiar way of doing it.  Her right leg is in the correct form for crawling, but her left leg is in a straight position. In other words, it looks like she is half crawling and half ready to stand up and take off walking.

We have laughed at this “creative” way of crawling, but really we can be the same way in the way we live for Christ. Half up, but still down.  We go to things, like camps, conferences,etc. and get fired up, ready to take on Hell with a water pistol.

We are strengthened by the brothers and sisters around us, and in the process move from “sitting up” to “crawling”. We make a million promises to God that we are ready to “STAND for HIM” the second we get home.

Then we get home and we get back into the swing of everyday things and we are stuck crawling. Stuck half up, but still down. We have been equipped and challenged with the truth, but we get busy and do not follow through on our promise to God. Church, I challenge you, ARISE, ARISE! If God is for us, what can stand against us?( Romans 8:31b).

Let’s not be ok in a half up state, let’s rise up and walk in the power of Jesus Christ! After all Jesus said himself in Matthew 12:30,”He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.”  We have to be good stewards of the truth God gives us so that we can stand up, and be a light to our dying world.

God please help us to stand up, and grow in Your truth.

If we are honest with ourselves, a lot of us are stuck “crawling”. We have made commitments to God, but have not followed through on them. We are stuck in the middle of the process of growing as a Christian. What are some ways that you remind yourself to follow through on your commitments to God?