1 John 4:19 “We love HIM, because HE first loved us.”
Re-Lit, Re-ignited, Re-engaging! (Loving like JESUS)
On Apathy’s middle ground, lukewarm assessments are presented; Appraisals without action where one’s zeal is in absentia.
Yet denied is such behavior with half-hearted empty waves…in directions where none standing are and where no cares remain.
Even so, not on the battlefront where soldiers are engaging…to bring HIS righteous love across “drawn lines” which enemies are making.
Yet this is my FATHER’s ground with HIS encampment found…most zealous!
Yes, press in beyond Rejection’s fears and past their walled defenses!
Whole indwelt by endless, sovereign pow’r, so serve as called. Relentless!
Yea, this is our FATHER’s will so…
Heed HIS voice!
As HIServant relit, RE-engaged and trimming my lamp for HIS return,
Whitney
Devotional: In many a charitable / giving activity, whether secular or Christian, Apathy is an all too present “force”. Specifically with “serving in Love” events,there are “Going through the motions”, disengaged hearts.
As such, HIS love truly is not seen crossing over to help. Consider what HE says.
Revelation 3:16 “But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of MY mouth!”
Yet make no mistake, food is shared with the starving. Don’t misunderstand, needed materials do reach the Lost and joy is seen. These activities are our charge, our due in HIS service which HE gives to us to do in HIS WORD.
But the Apathy! To combat its nagging, clinging presence, it does require a deep heart and absent desires for Amy recognition or reward.
Speaking MOST of all to myself, the best way to get past such Apathy is to throw oneself into the fray. To engage without reservation because…that’s where our impact gets replaced by CHRIST’s.
1 John 3:16 “This is how we know what love is: JESUS CHRIST laid down HIS life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.”
Sacrificially. Without strings!
The example I give is this output HE surges through this vessel; encouraging poems with devotionals each day. When I was much more focused on my delivery…highlighting my “part” in it, I felt the intermittent rewards of my “work”. Intentional rhymes, well thought out verses, clear message but lacking personal peace and joy.
Measuring the effort needed for each writing, once in awhile giving a manuscript away, always aware of the “cost” of time and energy input.
Then I found myself stuck at 647 poems in 1998. For 5 years, though re-engaging my own strength quite often, there was NO output. On average for a total of five years, that number only rose by 1…a year.
Finally brought to an end of myself and personal effort, my view awoke to “WHERE” I was. My steps were still on the “disengaged” side. Though my perception was “wholly committed”, I was totally wrong.
So crying out to the LORD, my plea was for HIM to return to me the joy of writing. In a momentary “flash of brilliance” I added…”and I’ll only write about YOU, oh LORD!”
That was in late September of 2003. 647 poems at age 36. Now, at 51, HE has lovingly compelled me to nearly 4,000 devotional poems and short stories with 3 books (500+ pages) about HIS purpose for our lives.
Love…HIS expression! HE makes all the difference! Read 1 Corinthians 13 at the end of this post!
Love then to serve, oh Self, without reward, expectation, fear or even partial understanding. Loving to simply serve whether, in my case, HE gives me even one more poem or even one more line.
Even as my fingers move to pen this, my thoughts drift from you to HIM…and back again. If these lines encourage you to re-engage your heart wholly into the good works HE designed for your life before Time began…Hallelujah!
I pray for you all in HIS love! Serve relentlessly our LORD and SAVIOUR and watch as HIS finished work competes fully our partly constructed lives. Amen, amen and amen!
1 Corinthians 13
Excellence of Love
1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.
11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.
13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is LOVE!”
2CJC 