Love

As we are continuing our series of podcasts on Meditations on Love, we have some powerful blog posts by Jolan and Judypie that further enforce the edict of Jesus’ greatest command. May this week’s blog post inspire you throughout the coming week… month… year…

If You Have Love For One Another
by Jolan

By this shall all [men] know that you are My disciples, if you love one another [if you keep on showing love among yourselves].

John 13:35 [AMP]

Often I think of the blood that you shed

The blood that you shed so that I may live

The love that you showed me that day on the cross

The love that continues to grow in my heart

Why me I wonder?

What did I do?

Me, who is so far from perfect

The idea is skewed

It's like that for all of us

We come to him broken

Ashamed of our past

And yet His arms are wide open.

That kind of love

Is the love we should have

The love we should always show our fellow man

So the question is this?

How do we love?

Others as Jesus continues to love us?

The answer is simple

The answer is this:

Love one another as Jesus loves us!

Simply put. If God can forgive you who are we to hold a grudge?

If God can open His arms wide after all that we have done. What prevents us from doing the same?

We are human and yet we are blessed beyond all measure with the spirit of God

Walking in Love
by Judy Ann

Father, the love you define in 1 Corinthians 13 is my greatest aim, and I ask also for the special abilities the Holy Spirit gives. I believe on the name of your Son Jesus Christ, and I am able to love others just as I love myself because you first loved me. God, you are love, and when I live in love, I am living with you and you live in me. As I live with Christ, my love grows more perfect and complete. Thank you for loving me, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it—because it does. Give yourselves to the gifts God gives you. Most of all, try to proclaim his truth. If you praise him in the private language of tongues, God understands you but no one else does, for you are sharing intimacies just between you and him. But when you proclaim his truth in everyday speech, you're letting others in on the truth so that they can grow and be strong and experience his presence with you.

1 Corinthians 14:1-3 [MSG]

And friends, once that's taken care of and we're no longer accusing or condemning ourselves, we're bold and free before God! We're able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we're doing what he said, doing what pleases him. Again, this is God's command: to believe in his personally named Son, Jesus Christ. He told us to love each other, in line with the original command. As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit he gave us.

1 John 3:21-24 [MSG]

^13-16This is how we know we're living steadily and deeply in him, and he in us: He's given us life from his life, from his very own Spirit. Also, we've seen for ourselves and continue to state openly that the Father sent his Son as Savior of the world. Everyone who confesses that Jesus is God's Son participates continuously in an intimate relationship with God. We know it so well, we've embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God.To Love, to Be Loved

^17-18God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we're free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ's. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.

¹⁹We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.

1 John 4:13-19 [MSG]