As I read from a book “Still on the Journey,” by one of my spiritual mentors whom I have never met, Jessica Kendall Ingram, I was blessed with a Holy Spirit revelation that I want to share with you.
The book is a devotional, as she calls it, “a collection of spiritual meditations and reflections.” As I read the reflection entitled “A Lesson on Forgiveness,” I was enlightened and challenged in my love walk.
I received a new perspective regarding my praying for God to help me love with His love. When encountered with a difficult person / situation that I know requires my forgiveness and willingness to hold no grudges, respond ungodly or totally dismiss the person, I usually pray, “Lord, please help me to love that person the way You love them.”
Dr. Ingram notes in her journey that she “asked God in total sincerity to help me love him (the him is not her husband) the way that God loves me, with all my faults, frailties, and failings. I prayed for the ability to love him with godly love.”
I have, too, as hopefully, you also, been on a journey of choosing God’s way over mine. This produces inner conflict and often leads to brokenness. It’s a tough process but yields greater results like spiritual maturity, which means pleasing God more and being a greater asset to His people.
Anyway, the Holy Spirit quickly showed me, through her words, that only asking to love the person the way He loves them keeps me somewhat emotionally detached, a bit objective and in control (having leverage in the relationship or with the person) even though God does give me the power to love them with His love. However, my loving them, though higher than my human way of loving, is at a lower level of God’s way of loving, where my flesh or sin nature is still in operation.
To ask for God to enable me “to love the way You love me” causes humility, is an eraser of self righteousness, giving me the ability to “see” the person from a more genuine and loving perspective, letting go of all distain and possible attempts to protect myself from further hurt from them.
Just to note: I still need God’s wisdom as to how to engage them even after I have forgiven them and have chosen this higher/deeper dimension of loving. This is because I can fully trust myself – my heart and soul (mind, will and emotions) to God and am no longer needy for or ignorant of the place that I had been with that person or in that situation.
Choosing to love people the way that God loves me, and you choosing to love people the way He loves You requires that you first think about / meditate on God’s love for you. You must recognize it and acknowledge it for yourself. This alone brings about an awe to God that humbles the hardest heart because not one of us is perfect and not one of us is deserving, in and of ourselves, of the ways that God shows / gives us His love, even through our sin and the uncertainties and difficulties of life.
For me, meditation on Jesus and The Cross including all that followed (you get it, we just reviewed it at all of our churches Easter/Resurrection Sunday: ) is what keeps me emotionally, mentally and spiritually balanced. The fact that I have salvation, eternal life through Jesus Christ, because of God’s love for me from the foundation of the world, is enough. But then the fact that He continues to shower His love on me as I journey through life is more than my heart and words can describe!
So I challenge you to take your love walk to a new place. Choose to love others the way God has loved you. This is without holding judgement about or against them, not holding grudges, realizing that they are still on their journey and are not perfect either. Yes, seek God for wisdom because all forgiveness and love doesn’t mean continued relationship if the person is abusive; that is a whole different blog.
So, take the challenge being sensitive to your attitude, thoughts and behavior. Then be honest with yourself before God if you are not loving His way. And, using this all familiar line, “I’m only human” doesn’t cut it. God has called us all who say He is our Lord and Savior, to a different standard giving us the power to operate in it – to live it out, and yes making mistakes along the way.
God’s Love to you as you increase in your love walk!
(C) 2016 by Rosalind Stanley
Rosalind Caldwell Stanley is the author of Family Life: Revolutionizing the Way Families Live & Love. Purchase it today from Amazon.com
BECAUSE OF GRACE 