Second, some of you have shared that something your read touched you and for that I praise God. You also mentioned that you intended to share the site with family and friends, thank you for that. Ten days ago, we first published a limited site and have continually worked to grow it as we believe we have been directed by God. To reflect what your efforts have accomplished, at the writing of today's blog, we have been blessed with over 1,050 views to the site in this short of a time. Congratulations, thank you and praise be to God.
1 Peter 4:7-8 NLT The end of the world is coming soon. Therefore, be earnest and disciplined in your prayers. Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.
In some translations we are to told to be clear minded so that we can have focus and purpose in our prayers.
Again the Scriptures instruct us to love but this time to love deeply. Deeply in this case is sometimes describes as strained or exercised like an athlete in training. When I was competing, I had to regularly strain my muscles to get them to grow. The strain or even overloading of the muscles actually broke down the muscle fibers so that when they healed, they came back bigger and stronger. There was no growth in size or strength without the process of pushing them beyond where they had settled. Putting that thought with the instruction to show that type of love for each other, can we say that we are not to love in a way that is easy, or to love only those who are easy to love. Might we say that we are to love with a love that stretches us, overloads our efforts so that we can love in ways we may not have thought we could? How can you love in a way that makes your love stronger? If we continue with the athletic analogy, to stretch and grow my muscles I had to work them harder and overload them through exercise. Many times people came to me in the gym asking how many set and how many reps they should do as well as what the best exercises. There are hundreds of exercises, even Bob Hoffman, creator of York Barbell wrote a book titled, 100 chest exercises. To say which is the best could take hours. I would offer basic advise which said, exercise and be consistent. Pick some of those 100 exercises and do them consistently and you would see growth. I believe that's what this is saying about love. Love, love hard, love in a way that stretches you and your ability to love will grow. When your love grows, you will have the capacity to love more and more people and even love people who are more challenging to love.
Peter follows with the fact that this consistently exercised love covers a multitude of sins, meaning that a person loving in this way sees the sins of those whom he/she loves but loves through their sins.This kind of love continues to love over and over again, this kind of love forgives again and again.
At first glance that might strike us as wrong or unfair. I imagine we can feel that way when we are thinking highly of ourselves. However, let's look at how we are loved by God. Isn't the love Peter is telling us to love with the same love that God Himself loves us with? We sin over and over and still He loves us. If God were human, don't you think we would have stretched Him so much he would look like Gumby after a ride in a blender? We push the limits with our glorious God but may feel we are justified in limiting our love of others. We all have faults as do those we live and interact with and even those we love. That love should be exercised by loving beyond what we might previously have set "love limits" on. Jesus proved that by loving us, He proved that by telling us to love our enemies and He proved that by loving His disciples even after they deserted Him. His love is the standard. The Father loved us through all the junk we have dished out to the point He sent His most precious gift, His Son to die that we might live. He loves us that much.
If we say we love Him, if we say we are a follower of Christ, if we want to grow into His image, then don't you agree that we need to stretch our love to new limits to love as He has loved? So today, let's go out there and get a great "love workout" and build ourselves to a new level of "love fitness"!
What if, because He first loved us, we love someone who has not been loved? What if that person then loves someone else because we were the first to love them? Can you believe that love could spread farther than we can ever imagine?
When I do my Scripture reading and prayer time, I sometimes like to pray Scripture that touches me. When I sing and when I pray and even when I pray Scripture, I attempt to personalize it. With that in mind, today I will pray Jude verses 24 and 25 NLT. This is not an exact quote of those verses because I have personalized them. You can join with me in this if you like. In view of such love as I am given, I want to praise our God in this way.
All glory to you my God, who is able to keep me from falling away and will bring me with great joy into Your glorious presence without a single fault. All glory to You who alone is God, my Savior through Jesus Christ my Lord. All glory, majesty, power and authority are Yours before all time, and in the present, and beyond all time.
And dearest Lord, please bless my brothers and sisters and grow them in their ability to love. Help us to love as you love, that we love because you first loved us. Amen.
Open your hearts and love somebody. Everybody.