So I am sitting in a little starbucks eavesdropping on a guy who is discpling another. He said something that just kind of hit me b/c spiritual gifts have been coming up a lot lately around me. The disciple-ee was asking about tongues and was saying he is open to it and brought up how Paul said 'if i speak with the tongues of angels but have not love' and the disciple-r said a great statement: "So many people are caught up in the power of God but people are transformed by the love of God" I am sure i am ruining the quote but this is not to say that God isn't powerful: he is this and to be feared!!! But also: think how central love is. Think how necessary it is to experience in order to build [any kind of] a relationship! It really hit me - this power, these spiritual gifts are all the children (you know the products, like if 2 people love each other they usually give birth after a 'sequence of events') of love! I remember that old hymn/Mcdonalds commercial for the special olympics:

Love lifted me, love lifted me, when nothing else could help love lifted me!!

He made this point: How much MORE power does it take to consistently love people than to speak in tongues... I there are a lot of tongue-speakers who probably struggle to love people much more... Why not aspire to love? THAT takes dependence! Loving is central - Relationship is key!

It's where it all started! When a man knows he is loved he can function- He really rises to his full potential in Christ when he receives the unfailing abounding love of God. We talked about today how man has those God-given needs (notice what acronym it makes...) and we will do anything to meet those needs to be:
Loved
Accepted
Worth something
Secure

LAWS.. and we find ourselves bound again, but what a joy it is to be a bondslave of Christ. Totally surrendered (i.e. giving up any form of trying to meet these needs through ourselves or others, flat on our faces with palms up ready to RECEIVE, to ABIDE, to DRAW in faith the love of the Lord who freely and abundantly gives it) and resting in His lap. Any other way of meeting these needs is bondage to sin and death. Romans 14:23 says anything not from faith is sin: Wow!

SO we have this love RELATIONSHIP with a Savior and a father in heaven and He is our source. And guess what? Jesus is a person! Do you know him like that?? Do I know him like that?! I want to! I want to know this person who lives inside of me.

I got here today and am in a class with a girl my age with quite a different life than mine, a guy who has studied much religion was raised baptist got confirmed catholic at 20 and is now 28 back to hear about GRACE, and baptist minister who is mostly in charge of pre-marital counseling but wants to counsel with grace life and another pastor from canada who is actually a missionary/seminary teacher in Ukraine. His wife will join us in a couple of weeks b/c she has already been through the training. Wow what a diverse group and how much are we gonna learn? I am already sensing how i bank each day on familiar surroundings and being comfortable to make life work for me. That is not living by faith- That is not living in victory- I want to be fully fully dependent on him and I know I am about to be incredibly humbled even more. Get ready as the Lord continues to free us from exchanging our self-life for HIS life!

It was funny that I found myself in this office with these people (brothers and sisters in Christ, mind you) feeling awkward and wanting to hide a little bit. But wait! I am beautiful! He has made me with incredible treasures that when I let them out reveal qualities of himself. HOw refreshing it is to be reminded again my need for him and the freedom from things as dumb as awkwardness. And i digress to the FACT that the person of Jesus is in me. We have a deepening love relationship and only HE is the answer. If i need peace, or love, or joy i dont pursue those things but pursue Him because he IS love, he IS joy, he IS the peace. Yep, He IS the answer!!!!! Its just a matter of if i identify with him or myself. Dang, he is so much better!

1 Comment

1. Susan Gordon on 12:45 PM

   Sweet Katie! I'm so stunned by the Words of God! The most central part of God is love...it's easy to forget that. I know that I have prayed that the POWER of God would rest upon me...and it's funny that I wasn't thinking centrally about loving others! But it's true, it takes the ultimate power of God to fulfill the ULTIMATE commandment - To Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength and to love others! Wanna experience the ULTIMATE power of God? Experience His power not only to love others but to love Himself in you! The Spirit of God moves in love and not just in the speaking of tongues. It reminds me of a time about three years ago, when the Lord revealed to my heart that He wanted me to "seek His face, and not just His hand" It's the same principle. We get so caught up in what God can do for us and through us instead of just simply allowing ourselves to get caught up in the person of Jesus! I want to be unbelievably caught up in Jesus! I want to be so in love with Him and trust Him so deeply that He can do whatever in me and through me! No wonder He said that loving others was the greatest commandment. It's only by being filled with the LOVE of Jesus that we can even begin to truly love others and this is the intention of our God - to be so full of His love that out of the overflow of our hearts, we speak, live, move, breathe.
   
   I don't really know why but this verse popped in my mind:
   
   "For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: 'I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones'" -Isaiah 57:15