Tonight's Blog for May 14, 2013

The key to our sermon for Sunday is that walking in the light has always meant that you walk in love. You really

can know God and His kind of love. The problem is that God's kind of love is often incorrectly interpreted or ignored or at least misunderstood. The quote from 1 John for Sunday's sermon is "God is Love." Some have incorrectly labeled this kind of love as merely emotional or feeling based. So, if you don't feel love, then you aren't in love anymore, right? Emotion based love is the kind seen by some as the highest kind of love, but I don't believe it really is. If God is love, then He is the one to help us. Will you pray tonight that God will open the path for you to know His love, so you can feel and live his love? There are 4 tests to see if you are growing in this love. The next picture with a sweet clown faced lady might help you to smile as you see if you have passed the tests.

How can you more correctly interpret and move toward real understanding of His love? There are some ways you can check in your own life. (1) When you bask in the love of our heavenly Father, you begin to grow more lovely.

I know you might not want to say that out loud, or that you might even begin to fear that you will be seen as prideful. The loveliness seen in the face, the eyes, and in the tenderness of the loving Christian is a direct reflection of the love that has been shown and modeled by Jesus. (2) As you grow in love, you will realize your worth. It isn't just the cross that proves this, every word of Jesus to his disciples was to help them to see their value. When you share this love with others, it grows and they see God in you. (3) Have you ever experienced boldness and freedom before God? This is the reason I love to pray with children and with adults who have abandoned the need to be too "adult" in their trust. 

(4) Finally, and my prayer for you tonight is that you will see that the love of God will help you to be less self-critical. Again, there really is a way to know, are you able to forgive yourself? Tonight, will you take a deep breath, go boldly to your father, and ask Him to forgive you? Will you promise to forgive yourself? He came from heaven, to make it possible for us to go there. We won't go to heaven if we don't love ourselves. We won't want to go to heaven if we don't believe that God is love. 

God bless you tonight, my dear brothers and sisters. big marv