Month: March 2011

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Known

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. (John 13:34-35, KJV)

I’m known for many things. I’m known for being a little lady who likes little things. I’ve been lovingly teased about my tiny purses, tiny shoes, tiny notebooks, my tiny Bible and my new hobby of growing tiny Bonsai trees. Oh, and did I mention I have a tiny dog too.

I’m known for my curly hair and for always having a smile on my face.

I’m known for ministering God’s healing power to the sick through His Word and through prayer. Some even refer to me as the “healing lady”.

But the scripture above is what I want to be known for. He said that all would know that we are His disciples by our love for one another.

I endeavor to be known as one who loves like He loves. The legacy I want to leave is that I loved God and that I loved people. I want to be known by my love.

Father, teach me to love.

I love you.

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He Sent His Word

A few scriptures about the Word of God…

He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction. (Psalm 107:20, KJV)

For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power… it is sharper than any two-edged sword… (Hebrews 4:12, Amplified)

So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. (Isaiah 55:11, KJV)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1, KJV)

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us… (John 1:14, KJV)

He sent His word and because He rode in a donkey; because He ate with sinners; because He grew up among them and they “knew” Him; because He healed on the Sabbath; many who had spent their lives looking for Him missed Him.

We find His promises to us today in His word. We pray and we believe. But sometimes we don’t receive because the answer comes in a package we didn’t expect. Maybe even in a package we don’t particularly like.

I’m reminded of a testimony given by a preacher who is known around the world. He shared about a time, in the midst of worldwide ministry, that he found himself in bondage to sin and unable to get free. God sent a plumber to pray for him and he was set free. Praise God he didn’t reject the Word of God sent to heal him by rejecting the package it came in. Selah.

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Why Am I Here?

I met a very interesting man once. He was introduced as a life coach. The minister introducing him said of this man that he had a very unique way of helping you find the answers already placed within you by God, simply by asking the right questions. I spoke to this man about the crossroads I had come to in my life. Unable to decide which way to go. I don’t remember all that we talked about, but I remember him asking me two questions that day that changed my life forever.

The first question: “What are you afraid of?” My answer: “Failure.”

The second question: “What would failure be to you?”

He asked me this question several times. I answered it several times but he just kept asking me, “What would failure be to you?”

And then the answer that was deepest within my heart finally came out. “Failure to me would be to not follow the Holy Ghost.”

In yesterday’s post I asked a question: “Why am I here?” As I write this, it is Sunday morning and in a few hours church congregations will be meeting all over this nation. Just as I mentioned yesterday about walking into that grocery store and asking, “Why am I here?” This morning as we walk into churches let’s ask ourselves, “Why are we here?”

Recently I was presented with the question of why I am at my current church. For the next few days, within my own heart, I answered that question several times, and several times I was presented with that question again and again. I was surprised by some of my initial answers. Many of them had to do with me and what the church could do for me. Then the answer that was deep within my heart finally came out. “I am here to love — to love God and to love people.”

It reminded me of a scripture from First Corinthians 13.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; now that I have become a man, I am done with childish ways and have put them aside… And so faith, hope, love abide… but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:11,13; Amplified)

I heard a minister once say in reference to this scripture that a child tries to manipulate people to get what he or she wants. However, a mature man manipulates himself to be what others need.

Why are we going to church today? To love God and to be loved by Him. To love people and to learn how to take His love to others.

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Sent to Love

Carlyle said there was no truer gentleman in Europe than Robert Burns, the ploughman poet. It was because he loved everything — the mouse, and the daisy, and all things, great and small, that God had made. So with this simple passport he could mingle with any society, and enter courts and palaces from his little cottage on the banks of the Ayr. ~ Henry Drummond, The Greatest Thing in the World

With this simple passport — love.

In the heart of Africa, among the great Lakes, I have come across men and women who remembered the only white man they ever saw before — David Livingstone; and as you cross his footsteps in that continent, men’s faces will light up as they speak of the kind doctor who passed there years ago. They could not understand him; but they felt the love that beat in his heart. ~ Henry Drummond, The Greatest Thing in the World

Why am I here? What is my purpose? Those questions can be asked concerning our very existence, or they can be asked as we simply enter a room. As I enter the grocery store and ask myself that question, the answer can be as simple as “I’m here to get milk.” But there’s another answer to those questions that applies no matter where we are in life, in space and in time, “I am here to love.”

One day I was at the gas station when an older woman passed out. I rushed over to her. I placed something under her head as others called 911. I prayed for her. As she came to I gently smiled at her and told her it was going to be alright. I saw her many times after that. She was going through a very difficult time in her life and each time I saw her I knew what my purpose was for being in this woman’s life. I was there to love her.

A friend invited me to join a group of people from another church, from another denomination, in a home for prayer. At first I saw no reason to go, but I felt a nudge from God that I was to attend. So I went and as I sat there in that room full of strangers I thought to myself, “Why am I here?” And the answer was the same that it always is no matter where I go, “I am here to love.”

To be quite honest, I wasn’t there to show them my impressive prayer skills. I wasn’t there to impress them with my latest revelation from God. I wasn’t there to critique their prayer skills. I wasn’t there to see what they had to offer me. I was there to love. And that was reason enough for me.

Wherever you go today, whoever you meet today, don’t forget to take your passport. Don’t forget to love while you are there.

Love is the passport that helps you enter into any society and causes His light  in you to shine wherever you go.

Ye are the light of the world… Let your light so shine before men… (Matthew 5:14,16; KJV)