Living in HIS love without expectations

Just an encouragement to continue to live in HIS love....


** "Do you realize how much you are loved (by God)? Do you have the experience of how deeply, tangibly, relentlessly, passionately, unconditionally you are loved? Do you realize--not in a theoretical way, but in a profoundly human way--how the love of Jesus Christ is so passionate whether you are in a "state of grace" or disgrace, whether you live up to the expectations of His Gospel or you don't, do you realize that God loves you beyond unworthiness and worthiness, beyond fidelity and infidelity, that He loves you in the morning sun and the evening rain, without caution, regret, boundary, limit, breaking point,--no matter what's gone down He can't stop loving you. Can you see, right now, Jesus looking into your eyes and saying, "I have a word for you, and my word is this; are you listening, I love you, I love you no matter, I can't stop loving you.""The craziness of thinking we must become worthy of God's love. If we will just let God be God--a Savior of unbearable forgiveness with infinite patience with a love that keeps no score of our wrong-doing. For us, love is a virtue. For God love is His identity." **

Speaking of "keeping score", I have been greatly influenced by this from Thomas Merton speaking to one of the brothers at the monastery;**

"If I make anything out of the fact that I am Thomas Merton, I am dead. And if you make anything out of the fact that you are in charge of the pig barn, you are dead."

Merton's solution? "Quit keeping score altogether and surrender yourself with all your sinfulness to God who sees neither the score nor the scorekeeper but only his child redeemed by Christ." **

Reader Question

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a
day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a
day.

2 Peter 3:8, New International Version


Hey Sue

As usual.......if I don't get it, I come to you. WHY is this an important scripture? WHAT does it mean? I'm sitting here scratching my no-so-bald-anymore head going huh??


Thanks!
Love ya
Cyndy

I suppose the context is important...he is speaking of last days and the fact that we need to be vigilant...but some take this to extreme and lay down law upon law for us to follow when Jesus left us with only ONE commandment...to love one another as he loves us....

As we grow in the Lord the meaning of certain verses seems to change...where it is said that if we love Him we will obey his command...i used to be of the idea that because I obey it showed how much I loved Him, but now it see that the other way around...I love him so much I just automatically obey because of the love...

I think this verse you are struggling over is similar in that one person will see it one way and another will see it as a totally different meaning...i find it just what it says...and leave it alone....to God it is ALL eternity...no beginning, no ending....WE are caught in a space of time....WE have no real concept of eternity....HE does, so a thousand years being like a day and a day as a thousand years seems a good way to express a concept of eternity...this is speaking of the end times...we are caught hoping the world will end (or not yet, please, while I am still here) when all we have is a short life span in comparison to forever...it’s barely a blip on God’s radar screen, kinda like a hundred million dollars in cuts from a couple trillion dollar budget....hardly worth a thought...

So it’s so great that He truly loves each of us...it’s like a big love story going on in our hearts when we are but a blip to eternity....and we have a tendency to take our little bit of “scripture” written about a God we can’t truly fathom and create all kinds of doctrines and laws regarding His love for us....

When He decided that written word was not enough for the Israelites, he sent His Son to wipe out the sin nature in the world and open up an entire new paradigm for EVERYone to come in....now He lives within US and the Holy Spirit leads us to Jesus and to Papa every moment of every day....HE made the way into His heart...all we have to do is accept it....and open up our hearts to hear from Him....

Granted, some of that can be through what we read in the Bible....but HIS WORD is already living within us...even if we had never read a word on the written page of the Bible we KNOW what is right and wrong to do....in Ecclesiates it says that HE put eternity in the hearts of men....and that was before Jesus came to physically reconcile the world....

What about those in deepest darkest Africa who have never ever heard the Bible? I am more aware now than at any other time in my life that our American, Western “Christianity” with it’s emphasis on the Bible being “the Word of God” is pretty bogus....the Bible is very important, don’t get me wrong, (I just quoted some of it, right?), but the WORD is Jesus Christ, speaking in our hearts thru the Holy Spirit....now we can either believe this or not....but since I quit taking every jot and tittle of t he words in the Bible to convey doctrine, and just listen to HIM in my heart, I have encountered a whole lot more peace and joy in my walking with Papa...

I have changed my way of thinking about God from one where it was up to ME to change and be like HIM to one like a child where I can screw up and know He still loves me...He loves me no matter what I do or how evil I am...however, the difference is that when I discover HIS love for ME...and it begins to show up in everything I do, I don’t WANT to screw up or do bad things. He already did away with the sin, Apart from the Law there is NO sin, and we ARE apart from the law....Romans something....

The REST of the gospel is just that...

resting in HIM. How to do it? I think it's a bit of fatalism, mixed with contentment, peace and joy, embued with LOVE for Father and all that entails. Fatalism in itself is selfishness, but when you KNOW the He loves you so much the resting gets easier and easier and you begin to understand the deeper meaning of His love. There is no fear in love. Fear's end result is punishment. Love's end result is a deeper more abiding peace with God and all those around.

Most of my life has been lived through fear. I am beginning to see when the fear is gone and replaced by intent to love, that my motivations are changed. Instead of trying to get the upper hand because I fear I will be lost in the crowd, I take the path of love and do what needs doing because I love.

I am now on Twitter   "silversaddle"