Category: Love

Daylight After the Darkness of Night

A poem of hope.

Meditation Thought: “For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.  I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.  Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.  Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:17-20)

Know ye not
That I am the
Way, the Truth, the Life?
Forbid me not:
Open the door of your heart
That I may enter in.
A more welcome guest
You could not entertain.
For I come not to take,
But to give:
I am your daylight after the darkness of the night.
I give you joy after tears.
I give you victory from defeat.
I give you a depth of knowledge
That confounds the wise.
I give you love that never ends
And life that is ever sweet.
The glory of God
Shall surround you:
It is without, waiting to pour in
Through the opening of the door of your heart unto me.

Love

Love is not complicated, demanding. Love is…

Perceived as a message from Jesus:

“Life is not designed to be puzzling to you – you do not need to furiously search and worriedly think and frantically act in order to please Me and My Father and My Spirit – all you need do is accept the fact that your Father created you in love, I came for you in love, and the Holy Spirit lives in you in love.

Love is not complicated, demanding. Love is the nurturing, delighting, fulfilling expressions of a parent for a child, or a child’s responses to such a love: a response of delight, enthusiasm and a desire to become as the parent.

Sometimes one is a child – sometimes a parent. It has nothing to do with age: only with the perception, the knowledge, the attitude, the circumstance. But whether one is in the position of child or parent, one is to be expressing love in one form or another. All kinds of expressions of love are needed in order for the whole truth of the Kingdom to be understood and to be expressed in one’s life.”

Pest Repellent

Those who have already started to grow serve as inspiration and encouragement for those who are considering growth.

Meditation Thought: “The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor…you are God’s field, God gives the growth.” (1 Corinthians 3:8,6)

Plant the seed of faith by your witness to My love. Everyone has been given a measure of faith as the growth potential contained in the seed. But the seed must be planted in the nourishing soul of willingness to grow, and nurtured in the acts of obedience to My Word and Spirit, that the fruits may be made manifest.

Those who have already started to grow serve as inspiration and encouragement for those who are considering growth.

If you act at all times as my faithful child, then at all times you are both growing and encouraging others’ growth.

Think of the potential harvest as you endure storms, drought and weeds and pests. Seek to concentrate on the sun (Son), on the parching of your thirst by the Living Water, on the strength of the natural repellent against pests as given you by your Creator: the repellent of the Word standing against the spirit-pest of evil, including the evils of self-will and selfishness and self-pity.

Goodness, righteousness and mercy shall be the fruits in My fields, flavored by love, savored by all.

Choose Every ‘This Moment’

Every moment you choose again. Choose Love. Choose Life. This moment, and every “this moment”.

Meditation Thought: “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God… God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (1 John 4:15,16b)

Cast away from your life all that is not love and truth. The knowledge of the Word shall keep you on your proper course: the course where the Father does His works in love through you.

You have been given a choice:
– to choose God,
– ignore God, or
– oppose God.
Every moment you choose again.

Every moment you choose to take the cross in pain and rise in glory, or to plod on and on, discouraged and confused, or even bringing wrath and bitterness to your soul as you oppose Love.

Choose Love. Choose Life. This moment, and every “this moment”. You will have no regrets. The tears of night turn to joy in the morning.

Evidence surrounds you that effort produces results, persistence produces results, that those who choose positions that are based on Truth, and love, beauty and kindness, go down in history as venerated and not hated.

Would eternity not be even more intense in the expression of Truth and Love?

If you have difficulty in doing what you know you ought to do, remember that God is in you and you are in God; therefore you cannot fail when you move to do what you ought to do, and furthermore, your blessings will be great.

Life progresses from tiny to large, from seed to fruit, from labor to rest.

You must look if you are to see, and you must see if you are to understand. If you want to truly understand, move close: move so close that at least your spirit is able to move inside that which you observe: and, consistent with the purpose which you have chosen, namely, doing the Father’s will in love, let your spirit guide your mind, your words, your deeds, and the Spirit which dwells in you, just waiting for your call upon His power, will move heaven and earth to do your bidding.

Grow & Thrive

In giving is the growing; in seeking is the growing; in trusting is the growing.

Meditation Thought: “…let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.” (1 John 3:18-22)

Sprout, sprout! Only put out a tentative little growth by your own choice, and great movement of growth will take place. Such a little movement of faith is needed on your part, for all of the rest of the maturing process comes naturally.

To the extent you seek to express your faith in deed and truth, to that extent do you grow.

To the extent that you live out the commandments expressed by the Father and more fully and accurately interpreted for you by Jesus, to that extent do you thrive and grow.

As a plant will thrive if it seeks the direction of the sun and seeks the depth of the earth to find moisture, so shall you thrive if you seek truth in the commandments, and seek to fulfill the commandments with your deeds.

Plants do not grow by stagnant inner concentration, but by thrusting both upward and downward, and so it is with you.

Seek to find the Light of God and the depth of love in fellowship with others. Both are necessary for your proper growth: too much neglect of fellowship and you grow top heavy; too much neglect of God and you cannot find enough to nourish the fellowship.

If you are to grow to the maturity of blooming, you must absorb both the Light and the nutrients found in fellowship and ministry to each other.
In giving is the growing.
In seeking is the growing.
In trusting is the growing.
To neglect these is to shrivel and die missing the purpose for which the seed was made, was planted, was given a place where all that was needed for growth was there.

Do not despair when you must seek the Light with pain of difficult turning from your present direction; do not despair when you find hardness and resistance as you seek the depth of loving relationships and ministry.

To make greater effort is to strengthen you – to make you even more the best you can be.

It may not be a pleasant way, nor the way you would choose for proper growth – but it is the only way.

The Light is constant and you must turn to it.

The consistency of the human experience is varied – there is sandy soil and clay as hard as brick. The only way for you to get your roots set firmly where they should be to find the nutrients you need is to persist in pushing through each layer of resistance by your roots of love.

If little plants crack boulders, cannot your love crack the hard ground of resistance of envy, bitterness, jealousy, and apathy? Of course it can – for the strength from the Light pouring into your spiritual ‘tap’, making it strong, thrusts down to your roots of love and causes them to grow: slowly or rapidly, visibly or invisibly, they grow – and in doing so, aerate the soil that others may grow too.

Turning on the Light

To the greater degree that we live out the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves, to that degree do we, in essence, by our choices, bathe our own selves in light.

Meditation Thought: “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble.” (1 John 2:9-10)

If we do the will of the Father, if we delight the Son, if we make welcome the Holy Spirit, how can we possibly be in the dark? We cannot: to the greater degree that we live out the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves, to that degree do we, in essence, by our choices, bathe our own selves in light.

The light is available, the light is created to dispel darkness: but we must know where the switch is that turns it on, and we must go to turn it on once we know where it is.

Of course, we may stumble on the way, we may lose our sense of direction for a time – but if we persevere, determined to find that switch and to turn it on, we shall have light, as we were intended to have light.

Our error is often believing that we can stay where we are and the switch will be placed in our hand and turned on for us.

Our way is sometimes made easier by the faint light from others’ lights showing us the path more clearly – but in order for this to happen, we must be looking for light in them and not for darkness, for what we seek we shall find.

Climate Change

If we have the choice to love or not love Him, obey or not obey Him, then our choice to please Him is magnified in its significance.

Meditation Thought: “…if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)

When we are cleansed from sin we are being images of the Father, Who is
loving,
good,
kind,
forgiving,
righteous,
willing to give free choice.

Furthermore, He respects our individuality and realizes that if we have the choice to love or not love Him, obey or not obey Him, then our choice to please Him is magnified in its significance. We must allow others the same choice – and as the Father does, by our words, principles, and actions, prepare a climate which encourages others to love – to act rightly – to find closer fellowship with God and with all.

What do you Fear?

Praying to the Father with Christ dwelling in you is as Christ praying to the Father for you.

Meditation Thought: “Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.  And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” (Ephesians 6:14-18)

Truthful, righteous, peaceful, faithful, Spirit-filled: This is a description of your character in Christ. Praying to the Father with Christ dwelling in you is as Christ praying to the Father for you. Christ Jesus: always doing the Father’s will, always obedient to the Word, always serving rather than being served; this Person pleads your case to the most powerful force in the universe: this Person is your Friend and Advisor. What do you fear? The armor of God Himself protects you from every enemy: the enemies of the flesh and the enemies of the spirit. All you need to do to have a life of joy, of confidence, of purpose, is to make the effort to wear the armor which is available to you. God will not dress you in His armor – for He will not violate your free will. But He delights in observing you wearing it, for you are His beloved child and He desires above all that you have the joys of His kingdom and the protection of your citizenship in it wherever you are residing.

Use all of the weapons and all of the knowledge and all of the wisdom and all of the resources of the advanced Kingdom which is your home country to your advantage as you reside temporarily in the foreign country of the world which is ruled by Satan. Any advice you need, any help you need is available -you receive it by asking for it by praying in the Spirit, dressed in the whole armor of God, believing that whatever you request will be sent to you.

A Lover, Giver, Healer

Hate flees from love.
Selfishness flees from grace.
Sin flees from mercy.
Doubt flees from faith.

Meditation Thought: “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:17-18(

When a man turns to the Lord there is freedom from doubt, from guilt, from selfish, barbaric instincts. There is the freedom to become like that which we see: The Lord. We are not bound by the restrictions of our human condition, of that which is feasible only by the efforts of men.

We behold a new vision – live by a new hope, and become a new creature: not be our own will and power, but by God’s will and power.

The glory of the Lord
Shines into our contrite hear.
Our dark intentions, our despairing
Souls become transformed:
The warmth of Love,
The light of Truth penetrate:
Healing, purifying, beautifying.

As we are changed into His likeness
We once again reflect His image,
As He made us.
The ravage of the rebellious years
Is removed – remembered no more.

As a father’s glory is enhanced
By his child’s true reflection
Of his father,
So the glory of the Lord
Is enhanced
By our reflection of Him.

We reflect Him when His Spirit
Is within us,
Giving us His qualities
In such abundance
That all alien forces take flight:
Hate flees from love.
Selfishness flees from grace.
Sin flees from mercy.
Doubt flees from faith.

His righteousness
Takes possession of us.
Not the righteousness
Of a Pharisee is this,
But the righteousness
Of a Christ:
The righteousness of
A lover, a giver, a healer.

A Green Thumb

Through Him are my talents moved from the potential of the seed through the maturing of the plant into the yielding of the fruit.

Meditation Thought: “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature.” (2 Peter 1:2-4)

Through His promises, through His example, am I made well and whole, am I released from the weight and dark of sin and able to fly into the light of the glorious day – the revealing light that enables me to see the beauty and grandeur of the Kingdom. Through Him are my talents moved from the potential of the seed through the maturing of the plant into the yielding of the fruit.

So long as we are pure, by the power of the indwelling Word, the cleansing through prayer, and the indwelling Spirit revealing to us the divine nature through the knowledge of Jesus Christ, then we are who we were created to be. We are trusting and obedient to the Father as was Jesus, and consequently we partake of the divine nature of the natural growth of the fruits of love falling everywhere we go: of minds excited with new knowledge, of burdened hearts lifted up into joy, of the desperate making the 180 degree turn in the direction of hope. The one common denominator of all movement which pushes everything from bad to better is LOVE: unselfish, humble, trusting, determined, faithful love.