Love That Points to Christ

We made it! It is the fourth and final week of our love like Jesus challenge ( is it obvious I never really named it, I think I have called it something different every week) `Anyway, how has it been for you? For me personally I struggled with this challenge I had the best intentions, but I would forget or I would think of being loving...after I gave the snippy remark.

My type A personality would tell me that I failed, but if I look at God's word it would tell me that He honors my heart, my willingness and desire to serve Him, to love like Him. He knew my short-comings, He offers grace, but also a path to do better the next time.

I think of my daughter who is learning to crawl. When she doesn't get it right away I don't snatch her up and refuse to ever let her try again. I don't say "oh well guess she is never going to crawl." No! I provide rest, encouragement, sometimes I even redirect her path to make it possible for her to crawl. I think God does the same with us, when we mess up He picks us up gives us a hug, a encouraging word and points us in the direction of who He wants us to love next. How kind and caring of our heavenly father, truly the perfect parent.

So as we enter into this final challenge, I would encourage you to reset. Look back over the other challenges and see how you can weave them into your daily patterns as the year goes on. Love doesn't stop in February as we head into Easter we are reminded of the greatest example of love, which brings me to our last challenge. Why do we love?

Scripture would tell us it is because He first loved us. Which is true, but I am willing to guess that if we were in person with a cup of coffee you would tell me the specifics of how Jesus loved you. How he rescued you when you were at the end of your rope. How he has provided for you and continues to pursue you with an everlasting love. Molding you to be more and more like Him. I know that I have those stories from my life and as we sipped coffee sharing our testimonies we would be encouraged. Our hearts would drift to gratitude and praise. Some tears would probably be shed and we would pray for one another.

While as much as I would love to do this, I can't meet with all of you in person. However, I bet there is someone you can do this with. Who is God laying on your heart to share your testimony with? Maybe the first step is to ask God to open your eyes to who that might be?

Here is the prayer I am praying over both of us.

Lord,

Thank you for how you love us with a perfect love. Thank you for being the example of love so that we can share it with those around us. Thank you for my testimony the beautiful story of how you chased after my heart and brought me to surrender. I know that testimony breeds testimony so give me the courage to be bold in sharing how you are at work in my life. Open my eyes to opportunities for this conversation without it feeling forced or not of you. I pray now that you would open my heart to speak your words and not mine. May what I share bring glory to you and bring both of us in closer relationship to you.

Amen!