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Soak Then Squeeze

Aug 23, 2013 | A Day In The Life, Aha! Moments, Verses |

“What changes us is not how much we love God, but recognizing how much He loves us.”  I’m sure I butchered this quote and I can’t even remember who said it (help me out, John Snyder? :-)) but I love the truth of it.
When we begin to understand the immense and deep, deep love of God, we can’t help but be transformed.  It’s a game changer.  A life changer.  It affects how we see ourselves and how we see others.  It marks our words, our attitudes and our actions.  If we really believe that God loves us like He says He does, then instead of dragging our burdens along, we learn to lift them to His strong shoulders and leave them there.  We live freer, more lightly.  Our fears diminish as our joy increases.
Look at what John said in 1 John 4:10 – This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (Side note – I looked up the definition for atonement and found this – a·tone·ment – noun  –  reparation for a wrong or injury. He came to repair wrong and hurt.  How delicious is that thought????)

 

My love for God is not where my life begins to have meaning. It’s an after effect based on God’s love for me.  1 John 4:19 – We love because he first loved us.  I love God and those around me because I have experienced God’s love for me.

It’s His “perfect love” that “drives out fear”. (1 John 4:18) Which means that I can approach ANYTHING in my life – any challenge, any disappointment, any loss, any difficulty – WITHOUT FEAR.  And why?  Because I know the perfect love of God.

I know that it is constant:

Romans 8:37-39 – No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I know that it is unconditional:

Romans 5:8 – But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

I know that it is more immense than I can fully comprehend:

Ephesians 3:16-19 – I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,  so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,  may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,  and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

I could go on and on and never cover all that God’s love is or does.  It would be impossible.  But you and I have the extreme privilege of living in that crazy, over-the-top, unearned love every single day of our lives.  And when we do, when we truly recognize it for what it is and who it comes from, our lives will not be the same.  We will change our world just by radiating what we are experiencing from Him on a daily basis.  We soak it in and it squeezes out of us to soak others and to drench our outlook.

And doesn’t that give today a whole new meaning?

 

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I promise to send some encouragement your way, and a bit of hope for the soul...

xo, jana

 

 

 

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