Greetings,
Tonight in my first entry I want to talk to you about love. Love is one of the most often mentioned yet least understood subjects in the Bible. I want to share with you how my beliefs about love have shifted through the years from something you must work at to something that is born in you. I hope the revelations I share with you will bless your heart as much (if not more so) as it has mine.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 says "Love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave itself rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails..." Years ago as a Catholic that verse would always condemn me because I was taught we are supposed to compare the way we love people to that verse and work to make ourselves love perfectly the way the Bible says we should. But I am beginning to see that is not the case. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying God doesn't expect us to love anymore. Love is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). The keyword there is "fruit." If you think about an orange tree, an orange tree does not labor to produce those oranges. It's not wilted and exhausted by the time harvest season rolls around because it had to work so hard to bear that fruit. It simply bears fruit because that is what God designed it to do. It does so naturally, without effort, in a state of complete rest. That is the same way we are to bear fruit, by resting in Him. But if we're not working to bear that fruit, who is? The answer is God the Father. In John 15:1 God identifies Himself as the vinedresser, the one who cultivates the fruit in each of His children. God is the One who bears fruit in us and for us. Love, like any other fruit of the Spirit is produced naturally through God's labor not our own.
You might wonder then why there are so many Christians in the world consumed with prejudice and hatred. There are many factors that play into that but I believe the most important reason is this: "He who loves not, knows not God for God is love" (1 John 4:8). In other words, they are unable to love others the way God wants them to mainly because they don't know how much God loves them (1 John 4:10). On the flip side, the more revelation we receive about how much God loves us, the more we *believe* in God's love for us, the more we will love (Ephesians 3:17-19).
I'm not totally there yet. I've been a born again Christian for about four years now and I still don't love perfectly. I'm still on a journey of learning and receiving revelations of God's love for me. But I've begun. And I encourage you to start your own journey. Read your Bible. Pray. Listen to teachings. Meditate. And as we grow in faith and bear fruit we will love others in greater abundance the way God intended.
-Renovatu
