Tag Archive | love

Love Letters

 

“I will read your letters over and over and over and over again.”

Justin Rizzo –  Worship With the Word –

http://www.ihop.org/prayerroom/archives/
(Wednesday February 5, 8:00 am, 19:01 -24:50)

International House of Prayer – Kansas City

These words were enough to make my inquiring mind want to know.

I had a need to know what God’s word says about “letters”.

I recall first, that the Bible is literally a letter to mankind.

It is a letter recalling the times of man from the beginning.

It is a letter journaling the days and times of God’s people, their enemies and the ways, during thick and thin, that God took care of their needs.

It is a letter describing how to live a better life by living wisely.

In total, it is a love letter of insight and provision to the children of a loving father.

Some of its “paragraphs” may be simple to understand while others are difficult and cryptic.

It is in the deciphering that we become engaged in the unfolding relationship with our “Abba” daddy.

It is in that relationship that we learn exactly WHO He is and exactly who WE are in Him.

2 Corinthians 3:2 (NIV1984)  You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody.

If we spend time pouring over His letters, we become like His words, like Him.

2 Corinthians 3:6 (NIV1984) He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Keeping time with His letters transforms us, and we become able to speak the life of His words to others.

2 Corinthians 10:10  (NIV1984)  For some say, “His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.”

We do not speak His words so that people can be impressed with us, but that they may be impressed with Him.

2 Thessalonians 3:14-15 (MSG)  If anyone refuses to obey our clear command written in this letter, don’t let him get by with it.  Point out such a person and refuse to subsidize his freeloading.  Maybe then he’ll think twice.  But don’t treat him as an enemy.  Sit him down and talk about the problem as someone who cares.

People who do not know Him or read His letters are not our enemies.

Romans 2:4 (ESV) Or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to to lead you to repentance?

Our time with His letters gives us the kindness, forbearance and patience required to gently lead them to God.

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Don’t know Him yet?

You can have that Significant Encounter by clicking on the “Rescue” tab at the top of this page.

Not enjoying His letters and His company yet?

The internet is full of free letters (Bibles) for you to begin your relationship with your Father in Heaven.

Won’t you try one?

What do you have to lose but your loneliness?

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Kansas City, Missouri. Front of the Internatio...

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A Father’s Love

 

Detail from Albrecht Dürer

Image via Wikipedia

Do you remember the sense you got when you were in the presence of your father?

Was it a sense of abandonment?

Was it a sense of anger?

Was it a sense of bitterness?

Was it a sense of regret?

Was it a sense of disconnection?

OR was it a sense of something even worse, a sense of lust and usury,

and the sense that you were prey to be preyed upon?

Did you sense that you were collateral damage to fill the evil desires of someone else?

2 Peter 3:3 (NIV1984) First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.

 

If this is the sense you had growing up,

I want to express my profound sadness for the life of that child.

 

I also want to express my equally profound belief that the anger, the bitterness, the regret, the disconnection and the overwhelming sense of being a victim can be overcome.

 

But how you ask?

Here is what I believe due to the work I have done on my insides.

All of the above, the sense of abandonment, anger, bitterness, regret and of being prey to those much stronger than I, has always tried to triumph.

 

But I “did the work” so to speak, and continue to do so.

I call it an “Inside job”.

 

In the natural world, all of these barriers can be strongly affected by therapy of many different types.

Each of us is made very differently.  Different approaches will have different outcomes.

In the best case scenarios, the fix may be hard to maintain because of difficulty we still carry within the memories. We are still connected in our minds.

 

In my own case I found that new things could not be done in old ways.

I needed a new tactic.  I needed a new thing.

I embarked on a new process, a less natural, more spiritual process.

 

It was not a fast process by any means, but it was effective.  I could hear my Grandmothers voice telling me that “slow and steady wins the race”.

 

My first action in the “new process” was very purposeful.

           I picked up my Bible and began to read.

 

Isaiah 43:19 (NIV1984) See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.

 

You mean my life does not have to be as it is? 

I do not have to settle?

 

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV1984) Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

 

But I don’t feel like a new creation!

How can this be?   Is this normal?

 

What I did not yet know was that when we give our hearts to Jesus and ask Him for His help, He saves our spirits, to live with him forever, but we still have our same flesh until the day we leave this earth.  We still must overcome the old thinking and habits we have had since birth.

 

Psalm 51:10 (NIV1984) create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

 

We must be purposeful, intentional, and active.  For that pure heart and renewed spirit, 

we must choose to seek Him.

 

Genesis 50:20 (NIV1984) you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

 

You mean all this baggage I’ve been saddled with for so long can actually be good for someone else?

 

Isaiah 61:3 (NIV1984) and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.

 

I, of course was the one “grieving in Zion”.

 

I began to learn about just how beautiful I was to God, and that His heart was to show me the TRUE love of a TRUE father.

He wanted to be my “Abba”.         My “Daddy”.

 

Romans 8:15(NIV1984) for you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”

 

I began to see that He has always wanted to lavish His love on me.

 

1 John 3:1 (NIV1984) how great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

 

His heart was not to harm me.  Harm came to me, but not by His choice.  It was the choice of humans.  The days are evil, (Ephesians 5:16B) and man makes choices that go far out of the realm where God would have us to live.

 

He, God, my heavenly Father, my Abba, did however protect my life.  He gave me an open opportunity to choose Him.

 

This is when I learned that I could fulfill His purpose for me, by helping others, who may not have ever heard that there is a way out.

 

Jude 1:23 (NIV1984) snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.

 

Is this a picture of you? 

 

Are you “grieving in Zion”?

 

 

Would you consider a new thing?

Would you pick up a Bible and read?

Would you take the step?

Would you “Do the work”?

Would you embark on the “Inside job”?

Would you ask for help if you need it?

 

If you answered yes to any of these questions,

Feel free to contact me here,

Or for more privacy, you can message me

At Significant Encounters on Facebook.

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For further research on “Abba” ->     http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/bible/tarazi_name_of_god.htm

How He Loves Us

How He Loves us.

No matter if we love Him back.

Nothing can separate us from His love.

How He loves us.

No matter what we do.

He will always beckon us to come to Him.

How He loves us.

No matter what we say.

His words created life.

If we really believed it,

Wouldn’t we live differently?

You can have a Significant Encounter with Him today.

Please visit the “Rescue” page on this blog if you’d like some help with that.