Chosen for/by Love

For the past couple of days, I have really been having a hard time.  I don't know if it is being back in the workplace, and not being able to surround myself with praise music and the Word all day?  I don't know if it is simply God stretching me and teaching me?  I don't know if I am in sin and God is working on my spirit slowly?  All I know is that I have been a little more depressed the last couple of days.

Have you ever felt like putting on a muzzle?  For the past week, it has felt like regardless of what I say or write, I get punched in the mouth!  I don't know why, and I am unsure how some of the things I am saying can get people offended or riled up, but no matter what I am talking about, it seems I end up in a conversation with people who want to take the opposite side of the topic of discussion.  For instance, right now, I believe I could go outside, look up in the sky and say - "It's blue" and someone walking by would say that it wasn't blue, it was the light reflecting off the surface of the earth and thereby reflecting the blue from the water that covers the earth, and making it seem blue when in all reality, that is an incorrect statement, for the sky has no color.

This has been my life for the past week!  It is a frustrating place to be, but God is teaching me a lot through this.  He is teaching me patience, and showing me how to love.  My prayer and desire for about a month now, has been that God would take me into His presence and speak with me face to face.  This morning, I was asking God to do that again, and He showed me that Jesus came, lived, suffered and died, while I was still His enemy.  All for love's sake.

Jesus was willing to look past every offense, every time I was going to point a finger at Him and say "You're Wrong" and try to do it my way, or approach life with my line of thinking.  He didn't hold any of it against me, but for love's sake, became poor!

Man, what a refreshing thought that was for me.  If Jesus choose to look past all of my sinful, terrible, horrible thoughts and actions.  If Jesus, who has the right to condemn and sentence and judge, laid that responsibility down - and loved unconditionally; shouldn't I be able to look past some disagreements and arguments and love?  My hope and prayer is that God will do that in me.  That I will die to my flesh that feels the need to be right and has the desire to argue and fight and prove my point, and simply love.

When I woke up this morning, I felt blah, and really wanted to stay in bed and sleep this day away, but now - I feel a new charge.  A new sense of responsibility, and a new hope.  Today, I have the opportunity to love God's people, in the way that Jesus loved them.  To lay my life down, die to my flesh, and serve with an attitude of love.  What an amazing opportunity and awesome responsibility that I have, because Jesus chose love.

Thank you Jesus, you are wonderful!  Thank you for your love, and though I don't deserve it, and never can earn it, I strive to love as you loved, and live as you lived, in hope's of pleasing You.  

1 Timothy 1:5