Love Is... Part 3

As I am looking into love it already seems like an extremely difficult task, even though so far all we have is patience and kindness.

Love is. . . Not envious

The last two aspects of love were things that we are to do, now there are things that we are not to do if we are loving someone. "Love does not envy", to not envy or covet is also one of the Ten Commandments. When I see something mentioned more than once, especially mentioned in major areas, in the Bible I figure that I need to note it and that it is being repeated because of its importance.

Envy is "the desire to have a quality, possession, or other attribute belonging to someone else. A feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else's possessions, qualities, or luck."

Covet is to "yearn to possess or have something"'

I figure that the opposite of envy is contentment, peace, and self-control. When you do not envy another person you rejoice with them in all the things that they posses. So as I see it there are two basic steps you take to become a less envious person.

First, you are satisfied with your life and what you have. You are content with the house you have, with your body, with your talents, and with the blessings that you have. When you covet another person it is because they have the thing you want, you want that thing because you are not satisfied with what have and you "need that to make you happy". To be "happy" we need more of everything and anything, we become greedy and "yearn to posses or have something". In todays culture this is acceptable, it is only natural to want a better life right? That is the way of the world though, we are not of this world and the way we are to love is not in their standards! In the Kingdom of God the poor, weak, and least of all people are the greatest. In His Kingdom we do not crave to have possessions that will fade away and be destroyed.

My "life verse" that I try to conduct myself by is Matthew 6:32-35, "Seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness and all these will be provided for you." What we need is provided for, and sometimes even things that we do not need but would like to have are also given to us. We should be living perfectly content lives as Christians then, in theory at least. There are advertisements that appeal to our covetous nature, showing something another person has and how happy they are since they purchased it, and now you too need to buy it. We all fall for this, Christian or not. We are told what is a basic and necessary lifestyle to have and we show that to God even though his idea of living life and the worlds idea of it are different things.

God created us, so he knows are nature and weaknesses. He knows that when we have a lot of things we want more of it. There is even a prayer in the Bible asking God for just enough so that we do not forget him and chase after the world and do not have too little that we doubt him. This should be our heartbeat. We are content with what we own.

Another part is being content with our skills and the way that we look. We also covet the bodies of models and the skills of celebrities. Until you value yourself and the way the God created you loving other people in the proper fashion is out of the question. How can you love your neighbor as yourself is you hate your life and who you are? How can we love others in the way that God loves us if we believe ourselves to be unlovable and will not accept or understand His love?

Think on this, are you truly content with your life how it is? Are you comparing yourself to others?

Second, you rejoice in the blessings of others and feel blessed to see others blessed. When you are content with who you are and what you own you then look at others in a new light. You no longer are comparing how much better their life is and compete to see who can be better off. When another person gets the promotion you want are you truly happy for them? When your friend is pregnant when you have been trying for years do you rejoice with them without bitterness or discontent? When blessing after blessing comes to other people so you thank God for blessing them in your prayers, or do you ask Him to give you the same thing out of jealousy. Do you feel like an equal child of God with everyone else, or do you feel like they are a favored child and you are the ugly duckling.

If you truly love a person then when they are blessed you are also blessed and they now feel even better because others are happy for them. This love is not to give you warm and fuzzy feelings, it is to make you make others happy. You have peace with your life and you do not indulge in consuming things to "one up" those around you, making them feel worse so that you can feel better. I do not know how I can ever fully master being content and praising God for the blessings of others, especially if I try to do it on my own strength. It is in my corrupted nature to envy everyone I see for something, and that is corrupt love.

When we see people who are more or less fortunate than us we should pray for them to be blessed, because we would rather them be better off then ourselves. To not envy is an extreme of self sacrifice and of putting everyone else before us. The last shall be first. People really feel loved when we show them that we are concerned with their happiness and that we are not with them for selfish motives, to gain what we want that they have. We restrain our personal desires and instead see what they need. Do not covet of envy, because you are also blessed and it hurts both God and others to see you wanting more and more when you have enough. You are highly blessed, go bless others and celebrate how good God is. Lets love people not for what they do and do not have but because they are precious.

Refining the faith,

C.A.M.

Photo Credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Love_heart.jpg

Gardening and Toolboxes

So when I was talking with my beautiful roommate earlier I thought of something and I figured it would be good for most people to hear. Therefore, I am going to write some of these down right now for everyone to read.

So when it comes to plans for your life I found that there are two questions you need to ask. I had to learn this over the past like six months here and I still ask myself these questions regularly.

One of the hardest things to think about is "Is this my desire or is it the desire of God?" (desires and passions as in to write or paint, or to go to India or minister locally) The Bible says "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4) And people twist this verse all the time and say "I desire to have plenty of money and live a carefree, happy, American Dream, type life" And that God will give that to them. Firstly, when you delight in the Lord, you love His commandments and you have the same heart and desires that He does. Then he will give yo those desires. Really think about that for a minute...

Yet another thing we think is, "Does that mean that all my desires are my own and God needs to get rid of all of them and get all new ones?" Personally I think this is only in part true. (Now there are exceptions where you are so skewed from God that you desire nothing that He does, but this is an exception, not a rule.) There are many times where God gives you passions and gifts so that you can go into a certain area. There are other times where God puts you into a place that you have no original gifting there, then he will give you those gifts. This is something that depends on the individual and truly takes prayer and a heart after the Lord to figure this out. You have to seek Him first and he will provide for and direct you. (Matthew 6:33, Proverbs 3:6) This is something I had to learn because I tend to be a planner and God really wants me to simply seek Him and then he will open the right doors at the right times.

So in my grand search to see if the desires and passions I had were mine or if they were Gods (That he put in my recently or at birth) I asked two general questions.

1. Who's seed is this?

When you have a plant you need to know what type of seed you are planting so you know what it is growing into. When you have desires in your heart think of them as little seeds planted at different times. The ones that have been there for a while and that are being nourished take root. The ones you don't want need to be pulled before those roots grow so deep that they can cause damage. So you need to identify what seeds you really want planted early on before it is too hard to remove them. So identify the seed you need to look into it and see what it's origin is. I listen to a sermon recently called "What is at the bottom of your joys." Basically, if you ask question after question eventually you are going to get to the root of why a person does everything they do. At the end there is only two options for your "why". It is either for yourself or for God. So look into those seeds, those desires, and see what plant it came from. If you want to write is it because you want it for yourself or for God? Really think and pray on it. If the answer if "for myself" then ask yourself if it has always been and always be just for you, or if you just twisted the thing God planted. You may change the root to being God instead of yourself. But if you look and see that there is no way it can ever be for or from God then it is time to take out that seed before it takes root. Once it takes root it will be hard to remove and will also suck the life from the other seeds. Now, if you see that the seed is from God you need to nourish it.

So look at the things inside of your heart, what you do and what you love. See what it will grow into. Either a dead plant for yourself, or a tree bearing fruit for God. Those are the only options. (Unless you try to plant a tree that has poison fruit for Satan, which is a rarity. Though he does enjoy to nourish your dead plants and have them kill off Gods.) The plant you leave in and nourish is what will grow and take over your life. If it is of yourself, when you uproot it it will be hard but it IS possible.

2. Who's tool box are you using?

In other words, who's tools (skills) are you using? When you are following what you desire is it all by the achievements and talents you taught yourself or is it the things that God has gifted you in? Like I said earlier, God will put you into an area where you have no natural skill at times and then you can get the skills by His spirit and it makes His name great instead of yours. We tend to want to use the things we are comfortable in that we have practiced and pursued. But think about it. When a person who went to school for writing for eight years published a book he would get all the glory. But if you had never written before in your life then it would be Gods glory. Or if God gifted you in it growing up He could get the glory then as well. So when you look at these things you want to do think if you are using your tool box, the tools that you collected, or your Daddy's tool box. His is bigger and has better tools for you anyways.

So just saying that you should check your seeds and use your Daddy's tool box when it comes to going after your purpose for life. And also, always pray and ask God to reveal the answers for you.

Keeping the Faith,

C.A.M

Conviction Calling?

Since I came to the Honor Academy in August I have grown so much in the Lord!

This may be true but....I also have not gotten as much as I could have...

Lately I feel like the Holy Spirit has convicted me of something that I have always struggled with. I have taken steps and made progress, but it still is effecting me. What is this hinderance?

Academics.

Too much of an earthly thing is always trouble, even if it was meant to be for good in the beginning. My whole life has always been dedicated to academics, school was pretty much an idol of mine. I constantly pushed myself and neglected my Creator because of it. Many people who know me know that I pushed and graduated High School 2 years early, this was not always a great achievement. It caused pride, judgment on others, and spiritual dryness. God gave me an opportunity to go through school and have plenty of time for Him, yet I abused this. I had hours and hours of free time after I finished school for the day yet I didn't spend it to draw close to Him. God later pretty much told me that all the plans I had built up for myself were...well..useless. Instead of College I took off a year, despite what other thought of it. And in turn I went to Alaska and then signed up for the HA.

I now look at all of it as a gift, though it was abused. After all, if I was still in school I would not have gone to the Honor Academy in the year I was meant to. The mistake I made was thinking that I had overcome my almost lust of learning and being the best. This is something that used to consume me and as obvious. But the more deadly form of it was inside of me, that is the unnoticeable bit, the bit of yeast that leavens the whole loaf (in other words). The small sins are the most deadly. As I went into my intern year this was inside of me. And recently God convicted me of this.

You can get college credit at the HA and it sounded like a good idea. Now this is not a bad thing in the least, it was how I handled it. I took on all the classes and I became stressed and irritated with people, and the worst part was that I focused on the classes more than dedicating my year to Christ! I was only thinking of classes and school, not my future with God or knowing Him more. I love the classes and they teach useful things, but they were consuming my life and spending time with God and building healthy relationships were last on my list... My eyes were opened to the type of person I had become and I know now that I need to stop before the last months of my intern year are up.

So I have decided to drop at least one, if not more, electives. I love them, but if they are going to effect my relationship with God I know I need to drop them. This next semester I am going to try to focus on God and Relationships instead of planning my future in every way. God once spoke to me saying "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own"(Matthew 6:33-34) This verse has more than one meaning that I though it did. God wants me to work hard in what I do and strive for Him, but also to not worry and plan every little detail of my life. He has plans for me. "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." (Jeremiah 29:11) And I can plan all I want but I'm sure that, once again, God will dash them all away. And it will be a better plan in the end but I can save so much time and trouble by seeking Him and letting Him lead then wandering aimlessly. And once I let go of my plans, again, more is being revealed to me each day! I cannot wait to see what's in store!

No longer have I forgotten the seed God planted inside of me, and the joy and peace I feel when I'm with Him. My passion is being refueled and my focus is narrowing in on the eternal! This new year will be the best of my life, I know it! And I can effect it and make the most out of it by simply focusing on God and the Kingdom instead of my learning and being a scholar!

I hope to make 2011 the year of a second chance, of refocusing, and of making Christ the only Lord of my heart! It's time to toss aside the College books and grab the Bible!

Keeping the Faith,

C.A.M