such a heavy word when coupled with a Godly desire to surrender completely to Him. I don't think I fully understood what that would entailed when I was laying at my precious Saviours feet several years ago....
You see, I used to be a christian that did not care about the lost, simply because my heart? it was hard. I felt like, or rather thought that people were just stupid(sorry) for rejecting this wonderful Jesus Christ that I had come to know personally, and that it was their loss. Silly in hindsight, because obviously their eyes are blinded and their ears don't hear.... I used to be one of them.
So, while I lay at the base of God's throne and asked Him to give me a heart like His, one that loves people(all people) like He does, He started to soften this sinners heart. While I was there I also requested that He show me my deceitful heart(Jer. 17:9-10). That has been rough. There are lots of sinful things that our hearts hold that our flesh(sin nature) tries to cover up and/or hide. It also does not help that our culture actually embraces many of these evil heart deceptions as being acceptable and dare I say "normal".... Anyway, I digress.
Loving others as God does. That is NOT at all what I thought it would be. Love is an action and sometimes it is an action that the recipient does not perceive as what is needed. ALOT of times the very thing that we need from God is NOT AT ALL what we think we need. But let me just say that I believe that ALOT of suffering that the Israelites endured did not seem like the "right" thing to them, even though our perfect and just God was the One doling out the love. Gods love can "feel" tough, and it is even tougher as one of His servants to be the giver of this kind of love.... But if you ask me I would much rather love this way(which by the way isn't how my flesh would like to do it my flesh would rather keep peace and have "friends and/or family") then pat my loved ones on the back as they go to hell.... Following God fully, without abandon, isn't the most popular way to go. Speaking the truth of God's Word because you not only love them, but you love Jesus Christ enought to only care about pleasing Him, and then stepping out of the way to let the Creator of ALL things go to work, is not an easy thing to do. We as a general rule want acceptance and our flesh wants to please man, but pleasing God comes first and loving people sometimes isn't what we think it should be. Rather loving in deed and truth and not with word(something said), neither in tongue(1John3:18), is not what we "think" love actually is. I know that in actually following my Saviour in loving this way that He is able to work in both hearts a wonderful transformation and fruit does follow....
If you asked me 3 yrs ago what it meant to be fully surrendered to Jesus Christ and His will for my life I would not have told you that this would be the lesson that I was learning....I had NO clue what I was asking for when I asked for His heart to love others. And to say that I wasn't prepared is an understatement. However, I would not trade it for ANYTHING!
Boy I hope that wasn't too confusing!!! I have a hard time putting into words the wonderful lesson that God has been teaching me!! :)
