Thanksgiving Thoughts

Please don’t give to me

Wealth or poverty

But God, I ask only for

Enough

O Enough

God, only

Just enough

Rain more than this day’s bread

And I may say I’m God instead

But take all my crumbs away

And I may rob and wound your name

So please give just enough

1 John 4:11-21

What I'm thinking about from this week's study:

• God loves us, so we want to love him and others! (His love inspires us!)
• Love lets us "see God" wherever faith-love is put in action (vs. 12)
• God's love reaches full and beautiful expression when we love fellow Christians
• We have part of God's life and power through the Holy Spirit living in our hearts. Wow. I need to remember this more often!!
• We can rely on God's love for us - he promises us boundless mercy and goodness to anyone who believes in Him. Even when we can't understand our circumstances, we can know and RELY on Him to keep his promises. He loves us that much.
• There is no fear in love - no dread of wrath or eternal death because we know all our sins are forgiven and we are loved! Even though we are still in this world, God gives us enjoyment of sharing in Christ's glory through faith. Eyes of faith will see the glory he gives. 
• Pray and fight for true faith, because it is inevitably followed by cheerful trust and godly confidence.

After a week of study so focused on loving the Lord and others, being motivated by faith, it's impossible not to be notably more aware of when and where we fall short. But to let our imperfections have the last word is not to have gratitude for grace and the loving Father who freely gives it. I pray that through all the lessons we learned this week and will no doubt learn again, that you all have peace that He is sufficient for you. It's a never-ending battle; He is always teaching us.

Seek Him first, his Words, his Body and Blood, his Love. In doing so, I know that he will equip us to extend hands and feet in loving-kindness and service to others. He will give us desires to do so some days, other days, we will just have the truth that it's what we are called to do even when we don't feel like it. The Holy Spirit will move us through the faith He's worked. 

I pray that we would all let God use us in love for his amazing purposes. He knows our hearts and our desires. I am thankful for a God who chose me, who chose you ladies, for His work in the everyday, in the not always exciting or glorious lives we may live. But I am thankful he gives us eyes to see his glories in big and little ways around us, and the faith to work out the joy and love we have for him.

Love to you all, and have a marvelous weekend! :-)

Cait

1 John 4:7-16

Hello dear sisters!
Here are a few of my reflections on these verses:

"No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." I remember reading in one of those 365-day reusable Christian calendars the following phrase - Remember that men judge your Lord by you. As we go about our daily lives, our reactions to unexpected circumstances and simply the way in which we treat those we run into - all of this is our unspoken witness, telling others about what kind of a God we have. Oh, that He would help us to reflect Him rightly!

"God is love." It's easy to acknowledge this when life is rolling smoothly. But when the car breaks down during a financially tough time or we get sick and the projects keep mounting up...it is much more difficult to recognize God's loving hand in permitting these trials. And yet ALL that he sends us is to strengthen us, or to draw us closer to Him, or to equip us to comfort others (or all of the above :)). Until heaven, we simply keep trusting Him and that amazing love that wouldn't spare His own Son. We can assure one another in tough times - our God does all things well!

Beautiful!!

One more video. This is amazing. My heart longs to do something like this even for a day. What a great and sincere example of living a life of love and service to God and our neighbor. Enjoy :) (It's a tear-jerker!)

1 John 4:1-6 - Greater Is He That Is In You

I don't know about the rest of you, but I really gain a lot from some of the Reflections videos posted at the original Good Morning Girls site. This one is from Week 8, last week, regarding verse 4 that I really love. :) It IS truly amazing how great and loving our God is! We are so blessed that we are his! Listen to this great Old Testament Bible story. It's awesome.

I John 4:4-10 Catch Up

7 verses about the power we have through Christ and again the unmistakable link between faith and a life of love..
I love verse 4. It's always been a reminder verse to me of what's really going on. The devil and all temptations are real and strong in the world and always waging on our hearts, but God who lives in our hearts is stronger than all of it! He permits his power to assist us in our weakness, making our faith real and strong against all of it! It's never a losing battle, ultimately, "through Christ who is our strength" (Philippians 4:13). It's so encouraging to know that whatever hardship, or hatred, misunderstanding or temptation we face at any given time is not too much for us because we have God backing us up. He is aware of all of it and always guiding and helping us to maneuver around or through it. He won't ever give us more than he knows we can handle, as hard as that is to believe sometimes!
God will always overcome Satan and his helpers in the end. Hallelujah, right!? :)
Some other focus points I got from this section:

-We can't expect the world to understand us or listen to us and like us. If truth and Biblical principals aren't popular in our world, then we who live by such truth and principals won't be popular either. It's one of those "you probably can't have it both ways" things. It's the life of a Christian. Unpopular, hard sometimes, but peaceful. We know we're on the right side, the eternal side..
-Love - faith - God: linked, always, only. One can't stand apart from the other in our lives, they all naturally flow into each other. "They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love..." Remember that song? :)
-The best and most perfect example of how to love is and always will be God sending Jesus for us. He sent him from perfect blissful heaven to sin-sick, lonely, cold earth to save those that were indifferent to him (that's us!) and didn't love him back. It's indescribable and impossible to comprehend, but we want to remember & appreciate it - and often.

What a beautiful portion of Scripture ladies! I know I played catch up and read a few days' worth at once, but I hope you were/are able to spend some quiet moments on these verses also. They are comfort and guidance and glimmers of hope in the midst of busy schedules, stress, misunderstanding and sickness.

Through our Lord, everything is righted. I pray you all enjoy the newness of another week and take today as a fresh opportunity to love him with your lives and shine His light!
Love to you all,
~Cait