Established in Love
Today's Scripture:
" May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love"(Ephesians 3:17, AMP).
Today's Word:
Did you know there is tremendous power in love? In the same way that a tree will grow taller and stronger when its roots grow deep, you will be stronger and rise higher when you are rooted and established in love.
How do you establish yourself in love? It starts with a choice. When you say 'yes' to love, you are saying 'yes' to everything God is because God is love! Then, choose to operate in love according to 1 Corinthians 13. That means being patient and kind. It means not seeking your own way, not being jealous or boastful. When you choose love instead of choosing your own way, you are showing the world that God is first place in your life. You are establishing yourself in love. The more you choose to walk in love, the deeper and stronger your roots will grow.
Remember, love is the greatest thing, and it is all that will last in eternity. Choose to establish yourself in love and let it be firm within you. Let His love build security in you and empower you to live the life of blessing He has in store for you.
Prayer for Today:
Heavenly Father, I choose to be established in Your love. Show me how to love others the way You love me. Thank You for setting me free and empowering me to live the good life You have prepared for me. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
***
“Examine and test and evaluate your own selves to see whether you are holding to your faith and showing the proper fruits of it .... Do you not realize by an ever increasing experience that Jesus Christ is in you?” (2 Corinthians 13:5 AMP)
An unexamined experience is worthless.
There are people who are 50 years old who haven’t lived 50 years. They’ve lived one year 50 times. They’re still making the same mistakes, because they never stop and extract the lessons. They never stop to ask, “What happened in this last year, and what can I do differently so that I am living life better?”
The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine and test and evaluate your own selves to see whether you are holding to your faith and showing the proper fruits of it .... Do you not realize by an ever increasing experience that Jesus Christ is in you?” (AMP)
What does that mean? It means you take some time to review the experiences of your life, and you look for two things:
Look for benefits. What did you really enjoy in your life? Don’t just say, “I really enjoyed that job.” Ask, “What was it about that job that I really loved?” Don’t just say, “I really liked that class.” Ask, “What exactly about that class did I like? Why was it so fulfilling to me?” You’ll get little clues about where you should be headed with your life.
Look for patterns. Particularly, you want to look for patterns in your failure. Because when you fail, you do it the same way every time. So you look and say, “Where have I failed in the past? What are the patterns that I keep repeating?” You don’t look at it to beat yourself up but because you want to be different. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. This was the problem with the Israelites. Their trip to the Promised Land should have only taken four weeks, not 40 years. But they refused to learn from their experiences and God’s tests. Each failed test meant one more lap around the desert.
The Bible says in Job 32:7, “The longer you live, the wiser you become” (MSG). That verse is a possibility, not a promise. I know a lot of people who are old and dumb. Wisdom does not automatically come with age. Maturity is when you extract meaning from the everyday experiences of life.
The amazing thing about the school of experience is this: One, if you fail the test, it’s OK. You get to take it over — and over and over and over until you pass it. Second, just about the time you think you’ve graduated, they add another course. You will be in that school the rest of your life.
Talk It Over
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