The Holy One calls to me this morning. Sweet peace fills the room and I feel His love like a warm blanket around my soul. Life and the battles I am in, bring confrontations that are not easy nor always understood.
If it were not for the wisdom of the Holy One, I would be in a loony bin due to the tainted perspective of a world crazed by sin.
Today, the Holy One speaks of His unconditional love, but not in the familiar ways I have heard Him in the past. He speaks gently to my heart, "The only way you can get to My Holy and unconditional love is to have your human and conditional love challenged. At that point you will become either a hater or a lover in the truest sense of the word."
I go back through the lessons I have been learning in the recent trials of life. Each one has ended with a final test which seems to determine whether I can move on into a new season and lesson or stay where I am for a re-do.
It's almost like the years the nation of Israel circled Mt. Sinai because they rebelled and refused the lessons in obedience and faith that would permit them to enter the promised land.
Our Great and Gracious Sovereign God, who knows the end from the beginning stalls our forward motion until we capture and apply the lessons He provides in today. Like a child who still needs protection by a parent, God sets up boundaries around us to keep us in the safe zones for our own good.
If we exit a trial without the purpose in it achieved, we will have to face a similar one until we are fully grown in the purpose and pass the test with application to our life and for our future trials. Godly character is built one day and one lesson at a time.
The Holy One continues to reveal truth: "Evil is a hater and that is why you are called to love. Love is the only force that is not deafeatable by evil".
The blast of that revelation hits all my brain cells. It is so true. The enemy of our souls is a hater. The enemy of our soul hates God. The enemy of our soul hates us. The enemy of our souls hates all that God created and wants to despoil all that is good.
I see clearly how the enemy of my soul hates even my enemies. Those who would despitefully use me are being despitefully used by evil.
I am permitted by God to hate evil and that hatred of evil presses me into service for my God and King. Psalm 45:7, "You love righteousness and hate wickedness, therefore God, your God has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy".
Many will come to this point of distinction and see no difference, yet there is a big difference between being an evil hater and a hater of evil.
Unconditional love does not give wickedness a pass. Unconditional love warns due to the reality that wickedness harms the perpetrator as much as the victim. Unconditional love efforts to stop the wickedness when given the opportunity, time and proximity to the evildoing.
Our great misunderstanding of God's unconditional love rejects the idea of consequences for bad form and abuses the mercy of grace. Ask any evildoer about the frustration when their will is thwarted, and we will see that they miss the protection that the thwarting represents.
Conditional love fails in all situations because it can only operate within the boundaries humans use to define it. Conditional love never sees past it's own satisfaction to the Cross that lies beyond those boundaries.
How then do I move past the hurt, pain, and even anger at the ones who have offended? For all my valiant heroic self-effort to rise above the human emotions, I am taken right back to the words of my Lord Jesus the Christ, "Apart from Me you can do nothing" John 15:5 NIV.
I know in my flesh I am hard pressed to operate at the level of love that pleases the One who died in His love for me. To really understand what unconditional love is and what unconditional love isn't we must always look to the Model. Drawing from the well of God's Grace, I can find the purity of His unconditional love.
By and though the Presence of the Holy One, who dwells within me, I begin to see the great exchange needed. Human emotions are not to be trusted. Human emotions wall me in and other people out. If I choose to live in that form of emotional isolation, I am limited in service to my Lord.
The persecution by others who are under the influence of the evil one, only drives me deeper into God's Sovereign purposes for my life and His will.
Unconditional love is not something I can generate. Unconditional love can only come from surrendering to the Holy One, my human conditional love. As with all the trials having to do with my transformation, I come back to the Divine mandate of surrender. For me to live is Christ. If I truly desire and believe that to be possible, I must be willing to make that great exchange: my life for His.
We live in a world spinning out of control. Evil abounds and evil doers are everywhere. The conditions on the ground are no different than when Jesus came into the world and said in John 12:47, "I did not come to judge the world, but to save it". Jesus did not come to stop the flow of justice but to better identify evil, call it out and warn the ones who live in it.
Evil will always persecute Holiness and Holiness will always confront evil. God's unconditional love does not want any to perish but for all to come to the saving knowledge of His life layed down for each one of us. The bigger reality of our human enemies is the depravity of the human heart. Change that and the evil doing will cease.
My conditional human love is being challenged. Will I surrender it to the great love of God? Our morning conference does not change the conviction nor the commission to call out wickedness or battle evil while on earth. Instead, It has been a call to check the motivation of my heart. I know I am to separate the sin from the sinner while remembering the enemy of our soul is an equal opportunity hater.
The devil hates the human agents he is using to further his evil agenda as much as he hates me. This truth gives me a fresh perspective. Compassion fills my heart as I get into sync with my Lord's unconditional love even for those evildoers in life who cross my path.
I am finding that the Lord's unconditional love for others is hard but not impossible as I make the great exchange.
The Holy Spirit is calling. Can you hear him?
If it were not for the wisdom of the Holy One, I would be in a loony bin due to the tainted perspective of a world crazed by sin.
Today, the Holy One speaks of His unconditional love, but not in the familiar ways I have heard Him in the past. He speaks gently to my heart, "The only way you can get to My Holy and unconditional love is to have your human and conditional love challenged. At that point you will become either a hater or a lover in the truest sense of the word."
I go back through the lessons I have been learning in the recent trials of life. Each one has ended with a final test which seems to determine whether I can move on into a new season and lesson or stay where I am for a re-do.
It's almost like the years the nation of Israel circled Mt. Sinai because they rebelled and refused the lessons in obedience and faith that would permit them to enter the promised land.
Our Great and Gracious Sovereign God, who knows the end from the beginning stalls our forward motion until we capture and apply the lessons He provides in today. Like a child who still needs protection by a parent, God sets up boundaries around us to keep us in the safe zones for our own good.
If we exit a trial without the purpose in it achieved, we will have to face a similar one until we are fully grown in the purpose and pass the test with application to our life and for our future trials. Godly character is built one day and one lesson at a time.
The Holy One continues to reveal truth: "Evil is a hater and that is why you are called to love. Love is the only force that is not deafeatable by evil".
The blast of that revelation hits all my brain cells. It is so true. The enemy of our souls is a hater. The enemy of our soul hates God. The enemy of our soul hates us. The enemy of our souls hates all that God created and wants to despoil all that is good.
I see clearly how the enemy of my soul hates even my enemies. Those who would despitefully use me are being despitefully used by evil.
I am permitted by God to hate evil and that hatred of evil presses me into service for my God and King. Psalm 45:7, "You love righteousness and hate wickedness, therefore God, your God has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy".
Many will come to this point of distinction and see no difference, yet there is a big difference between being an evil hater and a hater of evil.
Unconditional love does not give wickedness a pass. Unconditional love warns due to the reality that wickedness harms the perpetrator as much as the victim. Unconditional love efforts to stop the wickedness when given the opportunity, time and proximity to the evildoing.
Our great misunderstanding of God's unconditional love rejects the idea of consequences for bad form and abuses the mercy of grace. Ask any evildoer about the frustration when their will is thwarted, and we will see that they miss the protection that the thwarting represents.
Conditional love fails in all situations because it can only operate within the boundaries humans use to define it. Conditional love never sees past it's own satisfaction to the Cross that lies beyond those boundaries.
How then do I move past the hurt, pain, and even anger at the ones who have offended? For all my valiant heroic self-effort to rise above the human emotions, I am taken right back to the words of my Lord Jesus the Christ, "Apart from Me you can do nothing" John 15:5 NIV.
I know in my flesh I am hard pressed to operate at the level of love that pleases the One who died in His love for me. To really understand what unconditional love is and what unconditional love isn't we must always look to the Model. Drawing from the well of God's Grace, I can find the purity of His unconditional love.
By and though the Presence of the Holy One, who dwells within me, I begin to see the great exchange needed. Human emotions are not to be trusted. Human emotions wall me in and other people out. If I choose to live in that form of emotional isolation, I am limited in service to my Lord.
The persecution by others who are under the influence of the evil one, only drives me deeper into God's Sovereign purposes for my life and His will.
Unconditional love is not something I can generate. Unconditional love can only come from surrendering to the Holy One, my human conditional love. As with all the trials having to do with my transformation, I come back to the Divine mandate of surrender. For me to live is Christ. If I truly desire and believe that to be possible, I must be willing to make that great exchange: my life for His.
We live in a world spinning out of control. Evil abounds and evil doers are everywhere. The conditions on the ground are no different than when Jesus came into the world and said in John 12:47, "I did not come to judge the world, but to save it". Jesus did not come to stop the flow of justice but to better identify evil, call it out and warn the ones who live in it.
Evil will always persecute Holiness and Holiness will always confront evil. God's unconditional love does not want any to perish but for all to come to the saving knowledge of His life layed down for each one of us. The bigger reality of our human enemies is the depravity of the human heart. Change that and the evil doing will cease.
My conditional human love is being challenged. Will I surrender it to the great love of God? Our morning conference does not change the conviction nor the commission to call out wickedness or battle evil while on earth. Instead, It has been a call to check the motivation of my heart. I know I am to separate the sin from the sinner while remembering the enemy of our soul is an equal opportunity hater.
The devil hates the human agents he is using to further his evil agenda as much as he hates me. This truth gives me a fresh perspective. Compassion fills my heart as I get into sync with my Lord's unconditional love even for those evildoers in life who cross my path.
I am finding that the Lord's unconditional love for others is hard but not impossible as I make the great exchange.
The Holy Spirit is calling. Can you hear him?
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