09/03/09

Yes, this is a cactus that you can "pet".... carefully. Isn't it the neatest thing!?


I had devotions this morning at school. SO... of course, I will share it on here.

This past summer you know I was doing my Bible Study. The title of the study was "Living Beyond Yourself".... learning about the Fruit of the Spirit.

Have you ever thought what it means to "live beyond yourself?" We are such self-absorbed creatures that most of the time we are only out for ME, MYSELF, and I.

The first of the Fruit of the Spirit is LOVE.

I began to ponder that as I studied the verses that went along with it. We can't love as God loves because His love is agape - pure, unconditional, never ending. I don't know about you but I can sit and think of times I wasn't so unconditional in the way I looked at someone. I wasn't always willing to go the extra mile to "love my neighbor as myself" when they got on my nerves.

God does.

I John 4:19 says - We love Him because He first loved us.

Do you really hear what that is saying? We love only because God loved us first. From the beginning of sin with Adam and Eve's choice to the end of time as we know it, God is doing all He can to bring us back to Him.

I began to think on that more and more... loving others as God loves me. It isn't always easy. There are people that grate on my nerves in this life. There are those that are not so nice and aren't always easy to love.

Guess what? We are to love the unlovely in the same way we love those that are easy to love.

Here are a couple of quotes I read today from devotionals:

"We are told to love God with all of our heart, our soul, our mind, and our strength. God wants all of us, inside and out, from our head to our toes. He wants our emotional love, our eternal love, our mental love and our physical love. He wants us to be committed to him all the time, in every action and thought. Basically, He wants us to be consumed with love for Him."

"But surely the greatest of all motives is the constraining love of Christ. Not our love for Him, which is poor and weak at best, but His love for us. This is the constraining compulsion which makes us live and love and witness for Him. Because He loved us so much, therefore we no longer live for ourselves, but unto Him, who died for us."

Hmmmm... just gives new meaning to "living beyond yourself" doesn't it?

How can I live beyond myself?
By showing the love of Christ to others and being a reflection of Him.
By showing humility and putting others before myself. (Philippians 2)

This picture is the same one on my banner. I began to look at it differently one day recently when someone mentioned something about the reflection. I printed this out for the teachers to have as a "reminder."


Just like that barn window shows a reflection of another red barn on the other side of the farm, so should our lives reflect Christ through "the windows of our souls." We are made in the image of God, are we not? We should be a reflection of Him in words and actions.

Now, is that always easy? No.

There are days when I fail miserably to be a reflection of Him, but I learn from those moments and go on. I realize I need "the mind of Christ" because I can't do it on my own. It is only through His Spirit that I can truly reflect Him.

It Begins With You and Me

Becoming Christ-like in our hearts
Begins with you and me....
Serving humbly, as He served
In peace and harmony.

Shedding all our selfish ways
And putting on His skin...
Understanding who we are
In relationship to Him.

Giving up our own control,
Forgetting our own needs....
Being Christ-like in our hearts
Begins with you and me.

-Jill Lemming, Ohio