Day 361: Limitless Love

1 Peter 4:8
Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.


The year is winding down pretty fast, and the devotionals as we head into the last few days of 2017 will be a lot about self-reflections nd direction. Taking the word of God and allowing it to influence how we live, how we speak, and everything we do. One of the greatest messages the bible teaches us is love, to love God first then love people. God loves us with an unconditional love, a love that covers our sins and a love that forgives. A love that would send His son to die on a cross for us. God commands us to love one another. Love is the one thing that has the power to break down barriers, stop hate, the power of love is greater than many of us will ever realize, because when we speak of the power of love we speak of the power of God because He is love. The power of love is evident when we are reminded of a perfect man name Jesus who hung on a cross in order to save humanity from our sinful nature. That;s the love that covered a multitude of sins. With the way things are going in the world right now, not just in America but everywhere we turn, we can see that this world needs love, if we need anything we need love. We need to love one another, we need to love our enemies, we need to love ourselves. Love is what we need. We need to be drowning in love and pouring buckets of it on our peers. 

One thing I want to point out is that Jesus love was unconditional, it was almost as if He did not care about what people had done because He was willing to forgive them. He came with he purpose of redemption, so even the people who nailed Him to a cross would in some way take part in the salvation He had to offer. Love didn't care about what they had done in the past, all that mattered was now and how we are going to live in the future. Jesus healed countless people who were considered sinners, and hung out with people who were said to be the worst types of sinners. Now most would think that a man like Jesus would  have nothing to do with such people. But no, those are the ones He came for. He came for the ones that people described as hard to love, the ones no one wanted to go near. He came for the one outcast by society and the ones who were said to be the biggest sinners of all sinners. His love extended to even them, the same way it extended to the ones who considered themselves righteous, and blameless without fault. I want to challenge you to love people the same way. 

Love people earnestly, compassionately, unconditionally. As we start a new year walk in love. Walk in unconditional love. Extending the same kind of love that Jesus extended to us. Let love overcome. Let love allow you to forgive. I know that many of us have been hurt by people and betrayed and people have just done things to us that make us not want to love them, or forgive them. But let the love that is in you be bigger than the anger and stringer than the grudges we hold so often. Think about how much Jesus loves us and how much we have done to hurt Him, yet He would die on a cross for us all over again if He had to. Let's love that way. A crucifixion type of love, that the very people that nail you to a cross you will pray to God for their forgiveness. That's how we should love people. It's also how we should love ourselves. God made us worthy of love, why do we so often act like love is not for us. Why do we think we cannot love ourselves. You are love and you deserve to be loved. 

Response/Prayer Time 

Take the time to respond to what we discussed today. Have a conversation with God about love! 

I love you! I hope you have a wonderful day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 362!

Day 344: Don’t Lose Hope

2 Chronicles 15:7
But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded.
Isaiah 41:10
So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Before I say anything I want to start by saying, many times in life things are not over for us we just decide that it’s over. I want to encourage you all to never lose hope in Christ because that’s where everything we need everything we have to keep us alive is. If we lose hope in Him  then we have lost everything. I know that life is rough and can be rough and sometimes it looks like we have nothing and no one but there’s always hope in the Lord. There’s always something to hang on to. We just have to decide that it’s worth the fight, it’s worth fighting for. We have to decide that holding on to Christ is worth it all, when we decide that we will come to the conclusion that life isn’t over. It isn’t the end.
The scripture tells us that God is always with us, He is there for us. We should not fear we should not give up because He will uphold us. We just have to decide to hold on to. Many times it’s our decision to hold on to or let go of hope. Hold on to it if it’s the only thing you have left hold to the hold of Jesus Christ. If we’re hanging on to anything by a thread hold on to Jesus. He loves you so much, and even when it feels like you can’t hold on any keep holding because not only are you holding on to Him but He is holding you up.
All this to say, don’t lose hope. Hold on to Christ. There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel and that light is Jesus. As long as we hold on to that. As long as we trust in the Lord and know that He will sustain us, He will deliver, He will reward, in our due time He will make sure that we reap. Just hold on to hope, don’t let it go. There’s so much going on in the world that will make us lose hope in many things, but don’t let what you see or what you’re going through at the present moment make you lose hope in the Father. He’s got you, just keep focusing on Him, trust me He will hold you us. He loves you so much and He sees you, He hears your prayers, He knows you.

Response/Prayer Time 

Take the time to respond in whatever way you feel led. If this has struck you in anyway talk to God about it. Take the time spend time with God and have a conversation with Him.
I love you so much and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and encourage them. Make sure you come back tomorrow for Day 345!

Day 343: Recap

Today, take the time to go back over what we discussed this week. Whatever spoke to you the most dive a little deeper into it. I’m not doing a day by day Recap today. Today as you finish going over this week take the time to pray on that subject. But also take the time to pray for you me country. Take the time to pray for those affected by the fires in California. Also take the time to pray for those in Libya. People have been taken from their homes and sold into slavery, we need to pray for those people. A lot has gone on this week from politics to natural disasters, and college students everywhere preparing for and everything finals week. Life our people up in pray. Today pray for our nations and our people and our leaders.
I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 344!

Day 341: Crazy Love!

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

Romans 13:10

Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

1 Peter 4:8

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

Has love ever caught you by surprise? Like have you ever been overtaken by love and didn’t realize it until something happens and you know only love could make you do something like that? They say love makes you do some crazy things, that can be both good and bad. But today we want to talk about the good kind of crazy love.

Love will take you by surprise sometimes, and sometimes it’s unintentional. I cannot stay mad at anyone, even when I try I cannot hold a grudge against anyone because my love for whoever it is is greater. I have too much compassion and it’s all Jesus’ fault. He made me like this. He did this to me. It may sound funny, but I’m serious. Sometimes I just want to be mad, like give me time to sulk and get over it. Just let me be angry sometimes, I’ll get over I just don’t want to get over it at this exact moment. But then I’m reminded of the scriptures and how Jesus loves us and forgives us, and how we are called to love one another. I’m reminded that love covers the multitude of sins. I’m reminded that love forgives, and does no harm. I’m reminded of all these things and I start to ask myself what would Jesus do. Then the next thing I know I’m praying for that person, because I love them so much. Because God loves them so much and God loves me, and His love is within me. I cannot help but to love His people the way He loves them.  

Our hearts are set up a certain way, they are set up in Christ, they have been captured by the Lord. This heart in me, that heart in you has been purified by the Holy Spirit and made new. This heart God has complete ownership over. Therefore we love like God and live like Christ. That means we love even when we do not want to. It means that the love we have in our hearts will catch us by surprise, and sometimes that’s how we know it’s genuine because we aren’t even trying to love but it happens. We aren’t even trying to live like Christ but our hearts have been captivated by Him so it just happens. That’s that crazy kind of love I’m talking about. It’s crazy because sometimes we don’t want it, but we cannot help it. Sometimes we love people so much only to have them not love us an ounce back. It’s the crazy love that says even though you sin against me and nail me to a cross I will ask God to forgive you while you are in the act of killing me.  That’s the love that is in us and we wonder why we can do no harm to our neighbor even when they harm us. We wonder why we have so much compassion for people even when our mind tells us they don’t deserve it, the heart does something different. We have to follow our hearts, because God is in our hearts. When our hearts are full on God, everything that comes out of them will be just like Christ. Yes, that will catch us by surprise sometimes but it is the best feeling ever! It is great to know that God is so good that He makes us good as well. God’s love towards us is so unconditional that we learn to love people without condition. It’s beautiful.

All this to say, walking with God will have us loving people even when we want to do everything but that. But love is the key to living. Love is the key to peace. Love is everything we need. God is love.

Reflection

1. Has love ever caught you by surprise?
2. If yes to the above question, elaborate.

Prayer Time

Take the time to talk to God about love. Thank God that He loved us first. Thank Him that He teaches us how to love and how to live. Whatever is on your heart talk to God about it.

I love you so much and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for day 342!

Day 336: Recap!

Day 330: We Have an Advocate

Today we talked about how Jesus is an advocate for us and how he is constantly rooting for us. We also discussed how we should be and need to be advocates for one another, praying for one another and lifting each other up. We focused on 1 John 2:1-2.

"...sometimes we have to plead someone else’s case. Sometimes we have to sit ourselves aside and go to God on behalf of someone else."

Day 331: The Truth About Loving God

Today we talked about how we really know we love God. We asked ourselves question about what loving God looks like and how we can make sure we are doing it. We talked about what a life loving God looks like. We focused on 1 John 2:3-6.

" Loving God is less about abstaining from sin and more about obeying His word, there is a difference."

Day 332: Loving This World

Today we continued with the theme of love and talked about choosing to love the world or God, but we cannot do both. We talked about how the world offers us something temporary and fleeting but God gives us eternity. We focused one 1 John 2:15-17.

"There is only so much the world can do for us. But when we choose to love God, we are choosing eternity, we are choosing everything by making one choice to choose God."

Day 333: Walking Away Isn't Easy

Today we talked about how if we really love something or someone it is very hard to walk away. We then went on to propose the question, if we walk away from God, whom we say we love, did we really ever love Him at all? We focused on 1 John 2:19.

"When we come to the understanding of who God is and everything He has done for us in our lives we will want to stay near Him for all eternity. Walking away is not an option because we come to the conclusion that walking away from God means walking away from life and that is not something we are willing to give up."

Day 334: We Are Because He Is

Today we talked about how different life would be without God, if it would be life at all. We talked about how everything we are not only depends on Him but it is because of Him. We talked about how we tend to look over or forget the little things, not acknowledge that God is responsible for even those things. We focused on John 3:16 and Revelation 22:13.

"We must remember where we come from, we come from God, our identity, our life, our very existence is a result of a loving heavenly father. We are because He is."

Day 335: This is True Love

Today we talked some more about love. We talked about how God teaches us what true love is by loving us first. We talked about how His love is so unconditional and so great that we will never be able to fully grasp the capacity of it. We also talked about how God has taught us to love other people the way He loves us. We are called to love. 

"Love can change people. Love can pierce evil. Love can heal or soften a broken and hardened heart. We need love, love is what keeps us going everyday. Love is our foundation. Life is so much better when we love...Love makes the world a better place."

I love you so much and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 337!

Day 335: This Is True Love

1 John 4:7-12

7 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

11 Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

It is widely known that our foundation is built on love, God is love, our very existence stems from love. We talk so much about how important it is to love God and love people. This message will never get old. Throughout the bible the common theme is love. God loved us first. God is love. God so loved… Love God, love your neighbor. It is so important that we as people of God move in love. The main reason being is that God is love, with that being said, how can we move in any other way? How can we walk without love if we walk with God, it is impossible. Everything about God screams loves. If we do not know God then we do not know love, it’s that simple.

God shows us how to love, He shows us what real and true love is. He shows us through His actions, God loves us enough to give us life and provide for us. He loves us enough to create an entire universe that will sustain us until we are united with Him in eternity. The greatest acts of love we have ever seen is when He sent His Son to die on a cross for us, and when Jesus willingly took our shame and death so that we wouldn’t have to. That right there is true love.

As the scripture says real love is not that we loved God but God first loved us. We did not do anything to deserve this love, there was nothing we did to make God love us He just loves us. That’s it, He loves us, that love is unconditional. This type of love never runs out. If one thing I know. I know that God will never stop loving us. Even when we are living in sin, we know that because while in our sin God loved us enough to sacrifice His own child for us to have a life that would be freed from the bondage of sin. The scripture then tells us to take that love that God has given us and love His people. He teaches us how to love so that we can love others. So that we can give people a glimpse of  what God’s love is like. The love of God lives in us, God is in us and when that is true, when God has taken root in ur hearts we will love people with a Godly love that we never knew existed. That type of love is when we can’t really help ourselves. We just love. Even when we want to be mad at people and hold a grudge we can’t because God is love, and that love is running through us.

There’s an old saying that love makes the world go round. I cannot say that that statement is not true, because love is literally holding earth in place, keeping the world turning as the seasons change. Love can change people. Love can pierce evil. Love can heal or soften a broken and hardened heart. We need love, love is what keeps us going everyday. Love is our foundation. Life is so much better when we love. Through love comes peace, joy, kindness, forgiveness, humility, faith. Love makes the world a better place. Thank God that He is love.

Response/ Prayer Time

Take the time to respond to what we discussed today. Talk to God about love and true love. Talk to Him about loving our neighbors. Whatever is on your heart, pour it out to God.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 336!

Day 330: We Have An Advocate

1 John 2:1-2

“He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.”
‭‭

Advocate-a person who pleads for or in behalf of another; intercessor.

We all want someone to be on our side. We all look for someone at some point in our lives to be an advocate for us to intercede for us and speak up for us when no one else is listening to us. It feels good to have someone fighting for us and pleading on our behalf. It feels even better to have someone on our side or in our corner even when we’re wrong. It’s always nice to have someone rooting for us and having our back through our darkest times in our lives. An advocate is someone who fights for you, someone who pleads and prays to God on your behalf. We all have one.  Someone is fighting for us, someone is in heaven sitting at the right hand of God pleading our case. Interceding on our behalf, repairing our relationship with God.  That someone is Jesus. We have an advocate that died for us, and rose again. We have an advocate that continues to plead our case. How great it is to have an advocate that not only fights for us and intercedes for us in wrong, but He calls us to repentance to right those wrongs. Jesus doesn’t walk away from us in fact He is the one praying for another chance. He is the one that made it possible for us to have another chance.

Sometimes walking through this life all we want is someone to understand, or sometimes all we want is someone to pray for us and help through whatever it is we are going through. I cannot count how many time I have had encounters with people who have said, “If people only knew what I was going through…” There have been so many times in my life when all I wanted was someone to pray for me, because I felt like I couldn’t do it myself. There’s two things I’d like to point out here. Jesus understands. Jesus knows what we are going through, He knows how are and taxing life can be sometimes. He also has faith in His people, He knows that we will get it right. Jesus has more faith in us than we have in ourselves, sometimes we give up on ourselves. We give up trying to do what is right because we continue to fall. But Jesus is picking us up every time and putting us back on our feet. Jesus is in God’s ear advocating for us every second of the day, we are like His cause. He carried a cross to calvary and was nailed to it, so that we can live. He always had us and still has us in His heart. One thing I know for sure is that Jesus will not give up on us.

Second, we have to learn to be advocates for one another. We must learn how to pray for one another, and intercede on someone else’s behalf. Sometimes all someone needs is to be prayed for, not told that they need prayer, but to be prayed for. One thing I know for sure is that the power of prayer can change things, it can make things happen. If we just take the time to pray for that someone who is struggling, pray for that person who is continuously falling into sin. If we just take the time to pray for them, God will work a miracle in them that we never saw coming. We live in the generation of tweeting out prayers, #PrayFor… or sending out a tweet to someone in need and saying “you are in my prayers”. We get these tags trending but how many of us are actually praying how many of us are taking the time to pray for our brothers and sisters. I can tell you right now that I can do more and I am going to do more. The point that I want to make here is that sometimes we have to plead someone else’s case. Sometimes we have to sit ourselves aside and go to God on behalf of someone else. That’s how this “love your neighbor as yourself” thing works. It’s what Jesus would do.

All this to say, we have an advocate in Jesus, and we have to be an advocate for someone else.

Reflection

1. Have you ever had an experience where you knew that Jesus was up there in heaven interceding for you?
2. How many times have you been an advocate for someone else?
3. What more can you do to love your neighbor as yourself?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer. Take the time to thank Jesus that He is an advocate for us all. Take the time to pray for someone, if there is someone you need to pray for do so, and if you feel led to reach out and pray with them do that as well.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 331!

Day 323: All in a Day's Work

2 Peter 3:8

But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.

I remember when I first heard and read this scripture I was so discouraged. I was discouraged because what I took from it was, that I would be waiting all my life to receive a blessing from God. I thought that I would have to wait until I was nearly dead. However that is not the case, yes we have to patiently wait for God and trust in His timing and sometimes that means waiting longer than expected. One thing we must know is that God’s plan and timing are perfect.

It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I grasps true clarity of this scripture.  When I took my eyes off myself and put them on Christ I gained an understanding that wa beyond me. God does so much in a day that it’s like a thousand years. That’s mind blowing when you think of it. God does so much in a day that it can be spread out over the span of a thousand years. Crazy! The saying, “God is working or God is busy.” has a new meaning. He is literally always working and doing things, He’s keeping the earth in it’s place. To start things off there’s approximately seven billion people on the Earth, 7,000,000,000. That’s a big number, He wakes us all up every morning. God wakes approximately seven billion people up every morning. Different regions, continents, time zones. It’s mind blowing! Let’s think about this, how many battles has God defeated before they even got to us. How many times has He spared us and we didn’t even know. Stopped attacks from reaching us that we never even knew about. God is fighting battles for us that we never see. His walking before us and defeating enemies we didn’t even know we had, and that’s just the supernatural.

God is constantly moving in our lives and we see that everyday, He is answering our prayers, listening to them, and blessing us all at the same time. He always has His eyes on us, God is always watching out for us.  He knows every move we will make before we make it. He knows where each of us are going at every moment.  

This is one of the most humbling scriptures I have ever read. Sometimes we can get so busy and so tired and exhausted and start to complain. Yes we are human and the more stress we put on ourselves and our bodies, the more exhausted we will be. Sometimes we have to just thank God for everything He’s done. Even in our exhaustion and even in our times of stress, we cannot automatically fall into this world of complaints because God is so much greater than it all. We also get to points in our lives when we are so proud and excited for the things that we do for ourselves that we tend to forget that it’s really God doing and the doing. It’s really God that’s giving us the means to take care of ourselves. We have to set ourselves aside to see and understand how the glory of God is constantly being played out in our lives. All of this goes to show just how great God is. We will never understand the magnitude of His greatness. We can never completely wrap our minds around His glory.

All of this to say, God does so much for us, more than we can ever imagine and it’s all explained to us in this small verse. God is great.

Response/Prayer Time

Take the time to respond to what we discussed today. Rest with this scripture, meditate on it and just take the time to thank God for who He is and all He’s done, is doing, and will continue to do in our lives.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening!  Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 324!

Day 322: Recap!

Day 316: This Beautiful Romance 


Today we talked about having a relationship with God and how it is a special kind of relationship. We talked about how it is similar to a marriage, and how God is committed to us. We also touched a bit on our commitment to God. We focused on Ephesians 5:25-27 and Isaiah 62:5.

" God doesn’t want a casual relationship with us, He wants a marriage, He wants us to be with Him for all eternity."

Day 317: Knowing God for Ourselves

Today we continued the theme of having a relationship with God, but today we talked about getting to know God for ourselves. We talked about when it comes to entering into a relationship with God and giving our lives to Him, that decision is completely on us. We talked about how we cannot depend on anyone to grasp salvation for us, we must receive it for ourselves. We focused on John 14:6.

"We have to come to know God for who He is, we must profess our own faith. We must repent for our own sins. Our parents, our mentors, our pastors, no one can do that for us."

Day 318: Light Up My World

Today we talked about how the word of God lights up our lives, how it livens our spirits and our world. We talked about how the word of God is like a lamp on dark path and it guides and instructs us through life. We focused on 2 Peter 1:18-21

"The word of God has provided us with a way to sustain while here on earth, it has instructed us to live while we are still here but to look forward to what is to come."

Day 319: So Will I

Today was inspired by Hillsong United's song, 'So Will I' we talked about how all creation reveals the glory of God. We focused on Psalms 19:1-4. We talked about how if the earth worships God we will also, and of Jesus gladly chose surrender so will we. 

"Everything reveals a bit more about who God is, it tells us a little more about His love for creation and humanity."

Day 320: When God Blocks

Today we talked about how sometimes God is the one blocking our paths and closing doors. We often blame it on the enemy but sometimes God stands in the way of what we are trying to do because it is not what He wants or has planned for us. We focused on Numbers 22:21-34. 

"Everything is not the devil’s work, God works a million times more than satan."

Day 321: Half Empty or Half Full

Today we talked about perspective we talked about being content with we are and where God has us in our lives. We talked about how sometimes we are so focused on having the glass full that we miss what God is doing right in front of us because we're too busy looking at the glass as half empty. Therefore constantly trying to fill it. We focused on, 1 Timothy 6:6 and Philippians 4:11.

"Sometimes we are so focused on getting to next place and getting more than we already have that we miss God. We are overlooking what God is doing right now because we are so concerned with what He is going to do or what we want to do."

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 323!

Day 311: Guard Your Heart, Don't Block It

Proverbs 4:23

Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.

Ezekiel 36:26

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Block- to obstruct

Guard- To keep safe from harm or danger , protect

I’m sure many of us have lived by Proverbs 4:23, as we should. We have set our sights on protecting our hearts. So we will not get hurt, or so that it will not be abused. Sometimes we’re trying to protect ourselves from the wrong things. What I mean is that we sometimes have our hearts so guarded that we forget how to let those guards down. Guarding our hearts becomes building walls around it so that nothing and no one can come in. Our generation is so afraid of being hurt that we would rather be numb. We would rather not feel anything. I understand that heartbreak happens, at this age many of us have had our hearts broken at least once, but we’re still here. God put our hearts back together and shows us everyday how we should be loved.

We have so many walls built, from hurt, disappointment, betrayal, abandonment, the list can go on and on. It like every time something happens to us we build a new wall and eventually our hearts become unreachable. We forget how to feel, we don’t know how to love or be loved because we are so guarded. We are so blocked off from everything that we don’t even let God in.

Why are we so afraid to let love in? In the sense that God is love, no one can love us the way God will, but sometimes we can be so guarded that we can’t even knock down the walls to let Him in. The amazing thing about God is, He will knock those walls down and pursue our hearts. God wants our hearts, He loves us so much, but we sometimes turn away from that love. We turn away because we view God’s love through natural eyes, not seeing  that His love is supernatural. We don’t realize that God will love us more than the people who broke our hearts, He will not break our hearts, He will not stop loving us. Sometimes we allow our experiences to influence of perception of who God is. When the truth is, our experience with God should change how we perceive the world, ourselves, and other people. We cannot learn to love properly if our heart is caged by walks we’ve built to try to protect it. When we do that we distance ourselves from God and His people.

With that being said we must not assume that everyone is out to get us.

I remember a point in my life where I was so guarded that I wouldn’t allow anyone to love me, or get close to me because everyone that said they loved me turned on me and walked out of my life in an instant. After that I assumed that everyone was the same way, I thought everyone was just going to break my heart. I made it very hard for people to love me, as well as for me to love people because I could not bare the pain of having my heart shattered again. It was like anyone new I met would have to go through a trial run before I would let them completely in, just to make sure they weren’t going to hurt me. I closed myself off because up unto that point in my life had found that love hurts. Then God showed me, love should not hurt in this way. He showed me how I should be loved, by sent people, good, genuine people into my life that would not be there to use me, or hurt me, but people who would wholeheartedly love me. It threw me, because I was expecting them to walk out of my life, and treat me the same the others did. But they didn’t, God sent them to show me what true love looks like.

-Dyamond

A lot of what we go through when it comes to this is, we cannot trust people, we refuse to trust people or we find it very hard to trust people. Also the inability to completely trust and give our hearts to Christ. The first thing we must do is trust God with our hearts. He made the human heart, He tends to every need. If anyone knows how to love us, it’s God. We have to trust that God will not allow us to hurt beyond what we can handle. And yes sometimes we will go through heartbreak, it’s a part of life, trusting God with our heart doesn’t mean we’ll never hurt again, it means that in those moments we trust God to put us back together, and so much better than before. We trust Him to love us through the pain and aches.

All this to say, we cannot allow what has happened to us in the past influence how we love people in the present and the future. Guard your heart, and protect but don’t block it and lock it away. God wants our hearts but we have to be willing to trust Him with it.

Reflection

1. Have you ever had your heartbroken?
2. Did it cause you to close yourself off?
3. Have you ever found yourself guarding your heart from God?
4. Why do think it is so hard for us to trust God and people with our hearts?
5. Discuss this.

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer, have a conversation with God about what we discussed today. Search yourself and see if you are blocking your heart and let God in.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 312!

Day 308: Recap! (Kinda)

We're doing the recap a bit differently today. Take the time to go back over what we discussed this week. Whatever spoke to you the most or whatever you feel led to, take the time to reflect. As we reflect today I want to bring your attention to Day 305 when we talked about trusting in the power of prayer and praying in faith. Tonight America needs of prayer, Texas needs our prayers. As another mass shooting has taken place just a month after the last mass shooting. Both together have claimed the lives of hundreds of people. Today a gunman walked into a church and opened fire killing 26 people. So tonight we pray, tonight we lift up those people and we pray for the families. We pray for healing for those hurt and affected. We pray for peace in our world and we pray that even through the evil in the world we will always see the goodness of God. In the midst of all the hate we will love. We love you Texas and Vegas, and you are in our prayers.

I love you all and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to come back tomorrow for Day 309!

Day 302: Jesus Doesn't Care About Status

James 2:1-9

My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. 2 For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, 3 and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” 4 have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court?7 Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called? 8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

THe scripture above is pretty self explanatory, but it shows the difference between how we as humans think and how God thinks. It shows how we as humans see people versus how God sees His children. The goal is to see people the way God sees them, to see them through a filter of love as opposed to judging them with our eyes. How many times have we judged someone based on their appearance or statue? How many times have we treated someone different because they looked different than us, or came from a different background? Let’s be honest, I am guilty of it, and when I think about I think of how wrong that was. God does not show partiality, He treats us all the same. He loves us all the same, it doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, it doesn’t matter where you came from, what color your skin is, you are still a child of God. He does not care about our status. Do you think Jesus was thinking about status when He died for us, He died for all of us. HE died for every human being so that we all may have life. He didn’t come for just you or just me, He came for all of us. Every single one of us, that means we are all equal in His eyes, He did not care about our status or our background, He cares about us, His people.

I know many of us have judged people but also many of us have been judged by people and I can tell you it doesn’t feel good to be treated differently because you're not rich enough, you didn’t come from the right neighborhood or your skin isn’t the right color. God made us all equal and He doesn’t love us because of what we have, where we come from, or the color of our skin, He loves us because we are His children, He loves us because He is God and God is love. God’s love is unconditional, and that is how we must learn to love people.

The bible tells us time and time again to love our neighbor as ourselves, but if we are showing partiality, how are we loving our neighbor as ourselves. If we are passing judgements on people based on how they look how are we loving our neighbors like ourselves? We cannot dishonor God’s people and say that we love them at the same time. We do not get to decide if someone is worthy of our love, if we are walking this earth like Christ, everyone is worthy of our love. Everyone deserves to be loved. Loving people is not about us, it is about the other person, people need to know that they are loved. They need to know that beyond their looks, beyond their condition or situation, beyond their past, they are loved. Sometimes we make love selfish, love is the most selfless action their is. Can you imagine how that poor man must have felt when He was treated less important because he wasn’t wearing gold or nice garments? The honest truth is we have been all three people in the story. People make assumptions of who we are based on what they see and we have done the same thing. Let’s stop things cycle and start to walk, live, and love like Christ. When we are full of the Holy Spirit there is no room for anything that is unlike Christ.  

All this to say, if God is not judging anyone, what gives us the right to judge people. Show no partiality.

Reflection

1. Recall a time when you have been the person who was judgemental or the person being judged.
2. Looking back how do you feel about that?

Prayer Time

Take the time to ask God to search your heart and remove anything that is unlike Him. If you feel the need to repent by all means do so. Then take the time to pray for God’s people, pray that we will be a people that loves beyond what the eyes can see, that we will not judge people but love them.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 303!