Loving God Loving People - The Esstentials

It's exciting when you realize that Faith isn't a mathematical equation (Like you gotta pray a certain way, and then read your Bible for and hour, and then go get someone saved.) It is simply knowing you are loved by God, who has been COMPLETELY gracious towards ALL of humanity.

And He gives us all of these blessings, adventures, desires and dreams to experience with him, that in the end it all will point back to Jesus. It is not Getting caught up in what's right and what's wrong, or what we need to do in order to live a God filled life. First of all, its already God filled. Just recognize it. Second of all, its not about ourselves, and what we do.

God doesn't want us to do anything, or read the Bible with the intention of trying to figure out what we need to do better. He simply wants us to fix our eyes on Jesus and trust Him and believe that the things we worry about have already been completely finished... then our hearts are lining up with His heart and we will automatically start to do the things that "please" him. (The Bible is not a list of requirements, or steps to this or that, its more of a list of blessings or results after experiencing Gods love for you and me.) We are no longer looking at ourselves and striving to do what He wants us to do. Otherwise, when we are trying to do the right thing and examining ourselves constantly to see what we can work on, we are putting trust in ourselves to work up to what we want to be, and doing it from our own strength (which will end up wearing you out,) instead of trusting Jesus to align our hearts with His and trusting that His Spirit will lead us to do the right thing at the right time. But only that comes out of resting in the finished work of the cross, and not looking at ourselves (death to self- Luke 9:23-24). What He wants is for us to be drawn to the person of Jesus more and more, in that, we may desire to fellowship with Him all throughout our day and look for him in every piece of beauty. Yes, we do need to study the Bible and learn about Jesus through the Bible, but most of all we need to include him on our day to day experiences and really learn to just be with him (not feeling the need to be in deep prayer, or biblical study, or something) if we want an actually relationship. Otherwise it's like we're just stalking some man and not truly getting to know them. When you are in any kind of relationship with someone you don't just read about them or generally you don't only talk to them... you be with them and you experience moments with them, you learn from them, you adventure with them and you love them. You see, life seems to be all about relationships. We were created to be in a relationship with God. From there... we reflect His love, and eventually lead others to also gaining a relationship with Him effortlessly. I believe relationships are simply about getting to know & being with the person. Relationships are not what you can get from the person, or about how you can impress them. The same is true with God. I think that we get caught up in looking for acceptance from people and from God, so we waste our energy trying to impress, when really we are just being oppressed...(I don't know if the oppressed part made sense in there, but it rhymed...so.) We should just be looking for enjoyment in loving people and loving God and experiencing life with them.

Not to forget that we are even able to love only "because He first loved us." (1 John 4:19)
This life is about His love for us. When we experience His love for us, we then are compelled to love Him back, and one another, just as He called us to. And in that, I believe you will truly love and find beauty in life. 

You & I are Gods Beloved. That is so stinkin' great.