Fear

While going through verses today, the one that caught my eye was 1John 4:18; "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love."
I think this caught my eye because so many people today areconsumed by fear and some don't even realize it. The angle I saw it from though is that people are afraid to love. There are many reasons for this but usually its because of past hurts. Unfortunately, through the year "love" has been perverted, distorted, misused, and abused. Our view of love is generally messed up the most by people we trust, people we love.

More & more

When I first started writing about God's love and the different aspects, I knew there were many and I knew it would be incredibly difficult to try to write about each one. I was severely mistaken! The hard part is narrowing it down and identifying. No matter what I read, I'm always finding new aspects of God's love. Today I've been reading that no one can love you like God can, even other "gods". Every other religion has a god or prophet of some sort, but how many of them promise to love you no matter what? I'm still in Deuteronomy because there's a lot of great verses on love and I've already seen at least two different aspects of God's love. I'm further along in the book now though, today I read chapters 13 and 23.Chapter  13 verses 1-4 talk about a prophet who claims we should follow another God. Moses makes it very clear how appealing this prophet is and its so incredibly accurate to the world we live in today. There are so many people out there who claim that our God isn't great and there are other gods who are better. This isn't exactly recent but its recently become increasingly popular. In Deuteronomy 23 verse 5 we are shown that God truly does have our best interest at heart. This reminds me that through every trial we face, our God is still with us working that trial for our benefit. People all the time look back and realize the hardest times in their lives were what made them stronger, I believe God does that on purpose. Kind of like the verse Jeremiah 29:11, His plans are to prosper us and not to harm us. Who wouldn't want a God who loves them like that?

Deuteronomy 10

While reading this afternoon I of course came across the servant's heart. However this chapter was also very much about God's promise to us. This chapter made it very clear that God always fulfills His promises when we remain faithful. This is another example of relationship. God wants to bless us and give us all the desires of our hearts, but he also wants us to love Him. One verse I particularly liked was verse 16. Moses says "..be stiff-necked no longer" I just think its so funny that a problem they had way back then is still a problem we have now. God wants us to stop being stubborn. Not because He hates us, not because He wants to control us, but because He wants to bless us. If we're always in control we will never be blessed; we can't bless ourselves. God has so many promises and wonderful plans for our lives that we may never see unless stop being "stiff-necked".

A servant's heart

While reading about love I continually come across the fact that you can't have love without having a servant's heart. This may sound a little wacky, let me try to explain.
About a week ago someone posted on facebook that God had never done anything for her. This upset me at first because I knew it was wrong but I had to figure out how to word it first. Here's what I came up with. God definitely did something for us, Jesus didn't die on the cross for fun. He calls us to have a relationship with Him and from what I know about relationships, they're two sided. A relationship where one person is constantly giving and the other is receiving won't last. We ask God for things so often, but how much are we giving back? A relationship is give and take, not simply receive. Since we have this in a relationship perspective, how do you give to someone in a relationship? Do you give with a resentful heart? Do you give expecting more back? Do you give because you 'have' to? We are called to give out of our love for God. This requires a servant's heart.
I think its important to define the difference between a servant and a slave. A servant serves because they want to, a slave serves because they have to.
Having this information, I know I need to live a life serving God out of my love for Him, because He first loved me.

Blog to book

This past summer I went to a School of Ministry where I was taught how to be a campus minister. When the school was coming to an end, I could feel nothing but God's endless love for me. I wanted a way to take this love and show people that it's universal, it's not just for "good people", it's for everyone. Anyway, that's where the idea of the book started. The title didn't come for a while afer, mostly because the idea of the book kept changing. When I finally settled on a topic, God showed me in a devotion the title of the book. Love in Abundance is not just the title of the blog, but also of the book I'll be working on.