To Live=To Love

I was walking Maui today and just felt super compelled to start praying. Lately I’ve discovered that the times I truly feel compelled to pray, I rarely know why or what I’m supposed to say, and after some random “Thank you, God, for…” some actual meat starts to come out of my words and God and I start having some serious conversation. Today it was about life, about living, and ultimately about loving.

I discovered through today’s prayer that I have no idea what life is about, and that most of us don’t, and that most of us, especially Christians, have it all wrong. We strive to be the best Christians as possible, based on what the bible says, so that we can end up in heaven one day. And there’s the problem. Being a Christian is not about having the end goal being heaven. Being a Christian is about life! It’s about living! And ultimately it’s about loving! For life without love is no life at all, it’s death.

The bible constantly tells us that we were dead, then Christ came, and we were alive. Why is that? The answer is, Christ showed us the truth about love! And after accepting Christ, the Holy Spirit resides in us and allows us to love as Christ did. But so many of us don’t get it! The bible tells us that once we become Christians our hearts are changed from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh. What’s that mean? That means that Christ’s love resides IN US! That means we can now truly love, and if we can truly love then we can truly live!

So now the question is, “what is love?” Let’s take a look at this. If you look at Disney movies then love is finding that “prince charming” that “snow white” “The One!” It’s getting stars in your eyes for someone, having extreme infatuation, and living happily ever after. That is a gross understatement of what love truly is! It’s this idea that causes so many divorces in this day an age. We are constantly looking for “The One” thinking when we find them all will be perfect and we will live happily ever after! That doesn’t happen, and when it doesn’t we say to ourselves, “they must not have been The One. Time to go searching again.”

If you look in the dictionary you get several definitions, most having to do with sexual connection or one like this “warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion.” And it’s always categorized as a noun. Again, this is a gross understatement of what love truly is.

Now, since we are Christians, let’s turn to the bible and see what it says about love. I think, if we really break it down, we will be quite amazed at what we find. What we find is that love is not a noun, but a verb! 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 tells us this:

“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful
or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is
not irritable and it keeps no records of being wronged.
It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever
the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses
faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every
circumstance.”

That is the biblical, and I believe truest, definition of love. Now let’s break this down a little. In those verses we don’t see a noun, we see a verb. Love is patience when we are at wits in, it is kindness even to those that are not kind to us; it is the opposite of jealousy and pride. It is not rude, but considerate. All those words in italics are verbs. James 2:17 says, “So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.” Where do these good deeds from our faith come from? Love! You see, love is not merely emotion(though that s part of it), love is action! Love is the action side of our faith. Is is the way we go to God, it is how we treat our friends, our family, our significant others etc. What is faith, without love? Nothing, it is “dead and useless.” But what is love without faith? Everything! “Three things will last forever- faith, hope, and love- and the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor. 13:13)

Now that we have established that, it’s time to talk about how love equals life. This is the easy part. When you truly grasp what love is, you put everything in it, you become truly free to live. You stop living for yourself, and you live for God, you live for your friends, for your family, for you significant other, for the random person you meet walking down the road. We can add a little to what the bible says love is and say “love is sacrifice, love is suffering.” We sacrifice our wants, needs, desires, etc. We take on others burdens and suffer them for them. We do this out of love, we do this so that others will be raised up, that others will know joy. And through their joy, we can live, because our hearts are for them, because we love them, when we see them smile nothing that we sacrificed matters, no amount of suffering we took on ourselves matter, because that smile better than anything we could have wanted. When we sacrifice and watch our loved ones succeed we succeed with them. We stop living selfishly and start living for them, and when that happens we have truly become free to truly enjoy life!

If you just read all this and are still thinking “David, that makes no sense, and is kind of stupid. How could anyone truly live by watching others succeed while we sacrifice.” Then I’m saying read the life of Jesus. He continuously sacrificed so that those around him would be healed, released, and saved. When he went to the cross he made the ultimate sacrifice for us. He gave his life, gave up any chance of success and fame so that we could succeed in life. Everything that’s said about love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 was demonstrated that day on the cross: patience, kindness, consideration, humbleness, forgiveness, endurance, faith! He truly lived, because he truly loved!

God STILL Speaks, He STILL Moves, He STILL Heals!

GOD SPEAKS!

I've really been focusing on listening, I mean LISTENING to God lately. I hear over and over and over and over that God doesn't speak to us anymore like he did in the bible. My question is this, who says? Our God is the God of Abraham, Jacob, and Isaac, the same God that spoke to Paul and blinded him, the same God that tells us in the Old Testemant that he never changes. So if he hasn't changed, but he doesn't speak to us like that anymore, then maybe it's us that has changed. What's that mean? That means it's time for a change of heart on our part! It's something I've really been seeking, and seriously, I found my answer because he spoke to me. SPOKE! to me. Here's my story.

You all know that I send out a daily bible verse via. text message. Sometimes I know that there's something going on in one of your lives and I know there's a verse for that so I look for it, find it, and send it. Sometimes I have no idea what to send. Yesterday (May 12, 2009) was one of those days. I sat down on my break at work to find the verse to send later that day and something kept saying over and over in my brain "Book of Jeremiah." I didn't listen, I opened to Lamentations and found my self very board. Once again I heard "Jeremiah!" so I said, "Ok, Jeremiah it is." That's when I found the verse I texted you all yesterday (Jeremiah 1:7). I don't know if any of you have been reading something and there's just something that almost looks like it's in bold font when nothing else is and you just know it's God, but this is what happened. See, lately I've been praying for God to show me what he's trying to tell me while I read the bible. He did!

I read that verse and it jumped off the page at me and instantly I heard this in my head "You are not too young in faith (something I have been struggling with and why I have been pushing that call to more aside). I will be with you. You will learn and you will teach." I answered back "Ok! How?" The reply came instantly "Seminary!" Again I said "Ok!" and that was that. Needless to say I'm going to go to seminary. I'm going to talk to some people (Eric for sure, hopefully Allen) to find out about the different schools and go!

The point is that God spoke. He SPOKE! This wasn't me thinking things, people. This was a very clear thought with no decerning voice(because if you're like me, when you have that inner dialogue you hear your own voice), but very clear words. And when I answered it was my words and my voice that came through in question. I was floored and terrified all at the same time, but despite the terrified feeling there was a very calming, very peacful feeling as well. It truly was/is life changing!

GOD MOVES

God wasn't done with me just yet. Yesterday it was a conversation with him, today it was him showing me that when I let him fully in, when I completely surrender to him and say "ok!" when he says "Go!" that he will touch my heart, move it, and begin to heal it.

I called my mom to tell her that God spoke to me, told me to go into the ministry, and I said yes. Instantly my mom started telling me I needed to pray harder about it to make sure it was him then procede in telling me all the negative aspects of being a preacher. No matter how many times I told her I know all this and I'm ready for it (It's a whole other story, but God has already started to place me in some of those positions such as counseling) she downplayed it. I love my mom, but she has always done this and it has always left me feeling like she has no faith in me and that she has no faith because she knows I'm a loser and won't succede. I know that's a lie from the Enemy, but I stll couldn't shake it. I tried to walk my dog to calm down, it didn't work.

By the time I got back to my apartment I was fuming! I started praying in a way I never have before. This wasn't some wussy "God, please take my anger" prayer, this was me being straight pissed and taking it to God. I started pacing back and forth, voice raised, crying out to God. Next thing I know I prayed for something (sorry folks, it's a personal prayer for my family so I won't be putting that here), something I've thought of before but never put too much into, but God had other plans. He was waiting for me to go there and when he did he dumped his spirit on me and I broke and suddenly I was weeping. God didn't tell me what to do to fix the problem, instead I heard very distincly, "Keep going deeper!" and I did. The deeper I went the more bonds I felt shattering and my weeping turned to joyfull laughter.

I'm still waiting for God to show me how to rectify some of what I was asking, but I know a lot of that was revealed to me and now he's able to heal me.

Also, just a little FYI, I NEVER cry. It takes A LOT to bring out extreme emotions in me, and I definitely don't do it when I'm alone. It was one of the oddest, scariest, and most amazing feelings I've ever felt. My dog just sat there cocking her head from side to side looking at me like I was crazy. It was a great day! I'm so excited to see what God is going to keep putting before me and I'm so excited to keep saying "Ok!" when he says "Follow me!"