Thanks Aaron I appreciate your comments. Our doctrine and theology can all get a bit complicated sometimes, but Love is not hard to understand. As we know from Scripture, we can have many things,even give our bodies to be martyred for the cause, but even if we do that and have not love then we have nothing. One can only love to the extent that they have been loved. We , as Christians, must experience this love if we are to fulfil the mandate of Jesus. Yes we are to make disciples, but there will be none outside of love. For we know that the glory and the hell of Calvary came about because God so loved the world. So love initiated Calvary, and still love leads the lost home. To be able to love the world is not a natural act, it is supernatural. May we all experientially "know," the love of God...............Frank

What I have come to appreciate greatly is the love that rebukes me when I am wrong – the love that tells me the hard things that I don’t want to hear but must hear. The love that doesn’t just quote Scriptures at me when I am hurting, but will hold my hand while I cry.

I have been challenged in my own life by my tendency to give something that I call love, but that is somewhat superficial and selfishly unwilling to give what is required when it infringes on my personal time or space. This is not how God loves me. This is not how I should love others. This, in fact, is not love at all. It is probably closer to just being nice.

And once again we come back to our subject – dwelling in the presence of God. It is only as I am changed in His Presence that I am able to really love. As He strips away layer after layer of the selfishness that has been characteristic of my life, and as He brings me to deeper, higher, broader and wider revelations of His love for me, only then am I able to love.

In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:9-11

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Danielle

Oops - Double post

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Danielle

IN the light of HIs love many things are manifested. We certaianly can see our own weaknesses. I think of the prophet and what he exclaimed "Woe to me , for I am undone, I am a man of unclean lips." Yet, its only in His presence that we can truly deal with any of the issues of life. Everything done in our own stregnth is finite, in His infinite presence there is inifinite solutions. We cannot overcome anything by our own works, the only things that are overcome are the things that are yielded, surrendered. So, if you have truly entered into His rest, His presence, then you will truly cease from your own works. Now, one would have to define "works." It is absolutely not helping old ladies across the street, or feeding the homeless on Thansgiving day. We are His works. If we yield, if we surrender, if we step back, if we die then Jesus takes the pre-eminence, Jesus is victorious, Jesus steps forward,it will be no longer we who live but Christ will live in us. The works that glorify God is changed lives. Unless the Lord builds the house then we labor in vain. Our work is to yield, His work is to build and the builder of the house gets all the glory.