Have you thought about God’s Love

“and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” ‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭3‬:‭19‬ ‭ESV‬‬ 

Have you ever deeply thought about the love of God?

 I guess love is probably on the top of my mind as my husband and I are fostering our two grand girls. They have lived with us for 8 months now. It has been life changing for us and knowing God loves us as his children has been a comfort these days. His gracious hand on our lives has taught us we are taken care of but can we ever know how deeply God loves us? 

 We will find it hard to grasp the love of God with our limited minds. Gods love is limitless, God’s love is “agape” love. It is not a reciprocal kind of love. It isn’t the love that is easy to give because it requires the Spirits work in us and even still I am not sure we can ever grasp it. In Ephesians, Paul says it surpasses knowledge. This love isn’t the same love we give to our spouse or kids. We can love so deeply but in our flesh we want some return for it. We want our spouse or the person whom we have loved on to reciprocate that love or give us something back. It’s our human nature and everyone likes to be appreciated, don’t we? God’s love isn’t that way. He loves without any strings attached. I mean we can love someone and do all the things that go along with loving that person and tell ourself we don’t expect to be lavished with love back or even appreciated. But is that really true? 

 In our most basic nature I believe we find it hard but that’s where surrendering our life to Christ comes in. We can only love with this agape kind of love by prayer and letting the Spirit’s power do His work in us. Only then we will find our way to love like Christ knowing it is for His glory not our own. It will be with intentional action and no expectations. It isn’t easy and I would even say it is a selfless kind of love that only points to Jesus. There will be blessings and joy as we walk worthy of this calling by faith and obedience to the Lord. 

My encouragement is to keep praying and trusting God’s love will carry us as we learn to love like Christ. 

Days of Doubt

 

Some days I have doubts. 

I doubt God can see my dreams and desires to fruition. 

I am not sure I should doubt. I don’t want to be double minded like James tells us not to be. 

I see there is so much goodness and beauty yet life can be hard, sad, and hurt sometimes. The world wants us to question God. 

Then I doubt but really it’s me I doubt the ability of not God. I know He can do immeasurable things. I have seen others have their dreams fulfilled and God has answered my prayers so many times. Yet there are days I hesitate to believe it for myself. I let doubt hold me back.  Though it isn’t me in whom I should trust for anything. 

It is God. To fear God. 

sigh.

What is wrong with me? Should we ever doubt? I am not sure. There are days I believe God then the world screams in my ear, “it’s not for you. It will be too hard. It will cost too much.” 

What is the cost? My soul, my time, my money? 

I let fear paralyze me. I do nothing. I let my big emotions take me captive. 

It is in these times I go to The Word for answers. 

 Believing God is surrendering my doubts, the fear and the what if’s over into his arms. Freeing me of myself. All my resources are His. One big resource is prayer! 

My doubt brings me to prayer. Where I want to talk to God through my doubts, bringing me and my daily life to faithful surrender. He is faithful and never changes. So if He can do immeasurably more than I think I want to exchange my doubts with belief in Him for everything! 

Will I be faithful? 

Will I keep being obedient to keep doing what He calls me to do even in the beautiful days and in the hard days ahead? 

Will I believe my dreams are valid and He will work them out one day through my faithful obedience. 

I don’t want to doubt God can do anything even beyond what I can imagine for my life. 

What about you? 

#knitthegospelintoyourheart

Colossians Reading Plan

Bible Study Begins January 12th

If you would like to know about future studies and encouragement plug in here

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Knit the Gospel into your Heart Bible Study Group

Every Wednsday, we will read and exegetically study Pauls letter to the church at Colossae.

 I will have a LIVE chat in the group to read and discuss with you what we are learning. 

WEEK ONE

Read Chapter 1

*focus v. 1-14           

WEEK TWO

Read Chapter 1

*focus v. 15-20

WEEK THREE

Read Chapter 2

*focus v. 1-15

WEEK FOUR

Read Chapter 2

*focus v. 16-23

WEEK FIVE

Read Chapter 3 

*focus v. 1-17

Week Six

Read Chapter 4

*focus v. 18-23

Week Seven

Read Chapter 4

*Last session of study!

Forging Relationships in Christ

 

“Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.”

‭‭Colossians‬ ‭2:6-7‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

I relate building relationships to forging hot steel metal into a sharp cutting knife. It is a hard, labor intensive but an absolutely beautiful job. We as believers are called to build relationships. We are to build upon Him. It is the very foundation we must walk on in life in order that we can stand with any endurance. 

Let’s be honest relationships can be hard and it’s easier to just not try because things just may get messy and you could get hurt. You might be right. I have had people walk into my life and then out. It hurts every time and it never gets easier especially inside the church body. 

The good news is that God never leaves us just because others decide to move on. He gives us wisdom to strengthen our faith and he will bring along side us someone else who will encourage us. God never says to stop doing kingdom work so as sisters in Christ let’s keep forging a beautiful relationships with one another being knit together in love! (Col 2:2) 

Blessings 

Tracy