Take Me Deeper 2015 - February Weeks 1 & 2 Love

God's Love For Us; Our Love for God

The theme for February over at His Kingdom Come is Love. Week one's theme is God's Love, week two is Love God. For me, the two weeks went together - Receiving God's love for us, and then responding to that love and loving Him. 

So I felt the journal pages would go together as well.

I was wishing I had taken more photos of the pages as they grew, as it came together bit by bit. All I knew in the beginning was the colors were purple and red. I loved the splashes of white, and the red streaks coming down from above.

Receive His Love

The verse for Week One: God's Love is John 3:16 -

For God so loved the world

that he gave his one and only Son,

that whoever believes in him

shall not perish but have eternal life.

~ John 3:16

A familiar verse. And, as so often happens, reading it in a different translation brings new meaning to this and the following verses. Personalizing it, it was so powerful it blew me away, and I knew that was really all there was to say:

For God so greatly loved and dearly prized me

that He even gave up his only begotten (unique) Son,

so that if I believe in Him

(trust in, cling to, rely on Him)

I shall not perish

(come to destruction, be lost)

but have eternal (everlasting) life.

For God did not send the Son into the world

in order to judge me

(to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on me),

but that I might find salvation

and be made safe and sound

through Him.

If I believe in Him

(cling to, trust in, rely on Him)

I am not judged

[if I trust in Him I never come up for judgement;

for me there is no rejection, no condemnation –

I incur no damnation]…

John 3:16-18a (Amplified), personalized

I love this, I think I need to put it where I can see it always. The amplified version seems to make it so much more real, more concrete. And even though it is "the world" it is each one of us personally as well. For each one of us, God so greatly loved and dearly prized us that He sent His Son to save us, to make us "safe and sound through Him."

"He loves each one of us,

as if there were only one of us."

~ St. Augustine

It's hard to take it in, hard to believe it's true - it seems to wonderful to be true. And so the challenge is always to receive His great love. One that probably will continue for all of our lives and into eternity.

"Believe in Him" can seem rather abstract as well - what does that really mean? To know that I can cling to Him in my darkest hours, the hardest situations. To know that I can rely on His strength in my weakness, His wisdom when I don't know what to do. To trust that He knows, and He understands, and He loves me, and He wants what is best for me - no matter what others think, no  matter what I think. And that it's OK to come to Him, to cling to Him. That we can rely on Him. That He is trustworthy, and always there for us.

Respond to His Love

Thinking about such a great love, how can we help but respond. The verse for Week 2: Love God is Matthew 22:37 -

Love the Lord your God

with all your heart

and with all your soul

and with all your mind.

~Matthew 22:37

I know what I think of when I hear heart and soul and mind, but I was curious about what it would have meant to the people hearing it for the first time, the people Jesus was speaking to. How would they have heard it, have understood it? So I did some research in the Revell Bible Dictionary and Strong's Concordance (there are newer editions, this is the one I had on hand).

Heart (kardia) is defined by The Revell Bible Dictionary as "the true inner self." It goes on to explain: "In Hebrew thought, the heart was the center of each person's being and intellect. It is with the heart that a man feels, perceives, and makes moral choices. It is also with the heart that one seeks and responds to God." The heart is central, it is the essence of who we are.

Soul (psyche) comes from the word meaning "breath," the spirit. According to Revell, the soul is "the essential self, the distinct identity of the person." It can also be used in referring to the individual person - as in a report that a ship was lost with all souls aboard. I'm not really clear on the difference between heart and soul. To me heart seems to the inner being - our thoughts, feelings, values. Soul, perhaps, refers to the person as an individual, including each person's uniqueness in gifts and talents and personality.

Mind (dianoia) is defined by Strong's Concordance as "deep thought, properly the faculty (mind or its disposition), by implication its exercise: - imagination, mind, understanding." Sometimes we read "mind" and think of reason or intellect. It is that, but I love the inclusion of imagination and understanding. 

I loved the idea of responding to His love. So often I try - I try so hard. And there's nothing wrong with trying, but it becomes striving. We strive to make ourselves better, to be perfect - to be what we think He wants us to be. And it's such a burden. 

Maybe it's simpler than that:

"Come to Me,

all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened,

and I will cause you to rest.

[I will ease and  relieve and refresh your souls.]

Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me,

for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart,

and you will find rest

(relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet)

for your souls.

For My yoke is wholesome

(useful, good –not harsh, hard, sharp, or pressing,

but comfortable, gracious, and pleasant),

and My burden is light

and easy to be borne."

~Jesus of Nazareth

Matthew 11:28-30 (Amplified)

Ah, now there is a challenge for me. Because I tend to think it should be hard, that I should labor, and I easily become overburdened and overwhelmed. But Jesus paints a different picture. Come to Him, learn of Him, spend time with Him. And He will "cause me to rest" - (and sometimes, I admit, it's against my will!). 

Spend time with Him - in prayer, in praise, in worship. Learn of Him - through the Bible, through teaching, through the experiences of those who have gone before. Rest in Him - spend time in His presence; soak in His light, His love, His forgiveness. Allow Him to transform your mind, renew your spirit.

And Bloom.