Endurance part 3
Love never fails... love lasts forever... because love endures. Love is unconditional. It doesn't waver when things "look" bad. It doesn't give up when things don't go it's way. In fact, love doesn't demand it's own way. Love isn't about GETTING. Love IS giving! But when it's people doing the loving--and that's the "mysterious" way in which God (or love) works... God works through people--it's easy to get discouraged. Easy to feel like you've given everything you've got and now you're empty. Especially when it feels like people only care about you in the context of what you can do for them. When it feels like people never notice the things you do, but only the things you fail to do. You give, and give, and give and if you never get anything back it's easy to get weary. Worn out. Sick and tired of being sick and tired. But here's the truth of the matter: You're connected to an unlimited source. This is one of my favorite Bible verses of all time, "And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was greived, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God" (1 Samuel 30:6). When you get DIScouraged you need to have the COURAGE to ENcourage yourself in the Lord! To tap into that unlimited supply. Let God fill you to overflowing with what you have been filled with. Let what's inside come out instead of looking for something external. Let go and let God, as they say. Let go and let it flow. Focus on Daddy's love for YOU and then that love will come OUT of you naturally. Because it's too big and too powerful to be contained. It's not too good to be true. It's SO good that it must be true. And it's too good to keep to yourself! You can't give what you don't have, right? And you can only give what you do have. So in order to love you have to know and believe that you ARE loved. Receive it. That's the first part of enduring. You have to receive in order to release. But it's more blessed to give than to receive. Sharing what you've got makes it real in a way that hording it up can't. Sharing what you've got makes it grow, and expand. I know it can be hard sometimes. I know you can feel all used up. Feel like everyone's turning against you. David didn't set out to lead the people. They came to him. And as soon as things got rough they turned on him. They wanted to stone him. Kill him. But David didn't give up. He endured. He encouraged himself in the Lord. He didn't listen to what the people were saying about him. He didn't let the circumstances of what was going on around him dictate his reality. He encouraged himself. In the Lord. That's where we find our true home. Our true identity. That's where we find that strength to stand in the midst of trouble. Because we're planted on the Rock. And we can't be shaken. We are pressed but not crushed. Persecuted but not abandoned. Struck down but not destroyed. Because the fire in us is ALWAYS hotter than the fire we're in. The love in us is always more than enough. The power in us is working to do more than we could even ask or think. It's is sustaining us. Keeping us from falling. Equipping and empowering us to live this life in the flesh through the faith of God's beloved Son. Giving us the strength to endure. Giving us the strength... to love.