Good morning everyone,

Psalm 69:9-10-For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.

I think asking ourselves the question, how do we know we love others like God loves us can be very penentrating and healthy? I believe you can genuinely love and be in love with someone while maintaining a lot of pride and restraint to release such love. Yet there are moments, which hopefully become a pursuit of life, where we begin removing our own agendas and become consumed with anothers "agenda". We realize then our own pride and restraint is keeping us from a greater love. Jesus of course being the ideal person to be consumed by, but what does that look like?

We’ve "instinctively" learned to protect ourselves from being hurt from the experience of being hurt. So we rationally won’t allow ourselves to be "consumed" again, because all the pain caused from it, so we remain closed. But in placing a flawed human in the place where only Jesus can maintain perfectly, we miss the childlike freedom of trusting and allowing ourselves to adore and be adored again. So pride, stubborness, and bitterness hardens our heart so we look at such love as "naive", and look at someone in love and think "you haven’t been hurt yet".

The times I’ve suffered in any relationship is because the humility to be consumed with God’s call to love unconditionally is dying. Either it’s too risky, too much work, or even too hurtful. But really it’s a matter of how consumed am I with the love of Jesus? Jesus will prove that if we trust Him, He will protect our heart while giving it away. We will then witness that you don’t have to be "naive" to love hard again and again and again, because that is the witness of His love to us.

In His Love, Ld

On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 3:42 PM, Soong-Yol Hong <soongyol> wrote:

There is a reason why most people are selfish – me included. Because it’s easier to be. It’s much harder to care for other people’s well being. I mean it’s hard enough to care for my own well-being, but to add other people’s well-being to my concern, it can be burdensome.

But the real reason why we are selfish is because that’s our nature. It’s our SINFUL nature that makes us be concerned about ourselves first and foremost. And one way this shows even for veteran Christians is that we think the Bible passage we read each morning is about us. We read it for God’s direction for our lives, for moral instructions, for encouragement, etc.

But the Bible is NOT about us. It’s about Jesus. Jesus said, "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me." John 5:39

So, with this in mind, let’s read this next passage: "He who vindicates me is near. Who then will bring charges against me? Let us face each other! Who is my accuser? Let him confront me!" Isa. 50:8

If you were doing your morning devotional on this passage, who would you assume "me" is referring to? You would make yourself blessed by applying it to your own situation, would you not? You would think, "Yes, God will vindicate me! No one can accuse me because God is with me! Thank you, Lord, for this message. I really needed it!"

But it’s not about you. That "me" is Jesus. God will vindicate Jesus. Not you. Remember, it’s not about you but about Jesus? But here’s the awesome thing. Because Jesus is vindicated, we are vindicated. We reap the benefit of Jesus being vindicated because we belong to Him.

Let’s live today for Jesus to shine through our lives and not for us to shine through Jesus…

PH