Today, October 13, 2009 was an interesting day to say the least. It took on the measure of “faith & love” and between such there is “hope.”
FAITH … my day began at 4:15am as I was awakened, maybe a nudge from God to come meet with Him. I’ve been meditating … not the humming kind, but the thinking kind … on 1 Peter 1:3-9 for several days now. It is truly a “steak” to be savored bite by bite. This morning I came to verse 9 … “obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” To live in and by the outcome of faith is a striking thought. Though I will not go into it I had a different sort of dream where a man kept telling me, “Tonight I will be tortured and I will die for him.” My thought from such in the waking hours of the morning was, “Better to die with faith intact than to live without it.” It is Thomas in the gospel of John who says, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.” I recall the written words of Jim Elliot … “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” The responsibility of faith is a weighty matter not to be taken lightly. Bear up faith today and it will be there tomorrow. Come, let us who are of the realm of faith live in such for … the just shall live by faith.
LOVE … as my day progressed and studying for Sunday’s sermon on the first temptation of Jesus I was confronted with the words of Christ Himself … “Do you love Me?” (Jn 21:15-17) The questions spawned interrogation of the body, mind and soul … “Are you in love with Jesus?” Reading from the book, “In the Name of Jesus” Henri Nouwen says … “The Christian leader of the future is the one who truly knows the heart of God as it has become flesh, “a heart of flesh” in Jesus.” (see: Ezekiel 11:19-20). We are reminded in the Scriptures that we love God because He first loved us. (1 Jn 4:19). His love is the “proto” first love that is UNconditional and UNlimited. Jesus invites us to come and learn from Him … and so I come to Him as His student (disciple) to learn how to love God first and then how to love others showing the “UN” to the unloved.
So today was interesting in those two aspects, but all the more in how God drew me and led me to several points of ministry to exhibit both faith and love. So I keep praying … “Lord, keep drawing me to You, and extracting me from myself so that there will be more of Jesus in me … His life … His death … His love … His devotion … His sacrifice.” Amen.
Peace & Glorify~
