His love is the heartbreaking kind.
It's not just being filled, it's being poured out.
It's the healing but it also encompasses the breaking.
It's the wholeness but it's also the scattering.
John 12:23-24
Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
His love is the ravaging, painful, passionate kind.
It brings life but it doesn't shy from death.
John 15:13
No one has greater love than this - that one lays down his life for his friends.
His calling to love is a calling to scatter the pieces of our hearts.
It's a calling to give away pieces of ourselves.
It's a calling to lay down our lives for others, over and over again.
John 12:27
"Now my soul is greatly distressed. And what should I say? 'Father, deliver me from this hour? ' No, but for this very reason I have come to this hour."
We love because God first loved us. In our filth, He loved us. And He was broken for us, He poured Himself out for us.
The enemy of the Christian life is not brokenness, and love is not at enmity with pain or suffering or sorrow or heartbreak.
Love requires a breaking, it is the very act of giving away pieces of your self. Even Christ was broken and He was broken for love.
A selfish heart hoards it's many pieces for fear of those who would trample it, those who would take and not reciprocate, those who would lay it to the side.
A selfish heart is ruled by fear of sorrow, by fear of the pain that must accompany the breaking.
But a selfless heart gives and expects nothing in return.
It scatters its precious pieces about the earth.
It is ever being poured out but it is always being filled.
It is ever being broken but it is always being healed.
It is ever scattered but always being made whole.
The selfless heart imitates its Savior.
author: Brianna
I had a moment. One of those moments when you feel like you're banging your head against a wall for the Lord.
You know the kind. You work and plan and plan and work on a ministry...you pray and cry and laugh and pray...and the final result is...
Zilch! Nada! Nothing! Nothing worked out. No one came to Christ. No plan led to the Church's numbers being added to daily.
The result was nothing.
Then I started to wonder.
Did I hear God correctly? Did I somehow mess this up?
Eventually I started to feel like a failure. I knew that God never fails, so it must be me. Maybe I didn't pray enough or work hard enough or raise my hands high enough.
Next came discouragement. Discouragement is a powerful weapon that the enemy uses against our ministries. One that is all too often successful.
But then...then God's Word, His precious, life-giving, Word told me to stop. It told me to slow down, quiet my spirit and look into the Spirit of God for what is important regarding my calling, my ministry.
I didn't catch it at first.
The first time I read through 2 Thessalonians 1, I breezed right past it, but the Spirit kept gently, but steadily beckoning me.
So I read it again...and again.
Then I saw it. It is this little verse in the midst of a chapter full of powerful words of God's judgement and power.
This little verse with one of the most powerful messages for ministry that I have heard:
"Therefore, among God's churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring." 2 Thessalonians 1:4
Perseverance and faith!
It was about their perseverance and faith. It was not about what came about from the ministry. Paul applauded them for their perseverance and their faith.
Were there other things that were important? Sure! But right then, at that time, perseverance and faith were the significant aspects.
It is so easy for us to get caught up in the results of ministry. And Ephesians 4 tells us we all have a work of service or ministry!
When we pour into people and they don't turn to Jesus it is easy to feel like we have failed.
But to be in a place where we have functioned in the Spirit and in our calling and have it not be about our results, but about our perseverance and our faith!! What a burden that removes!
You see, God created us and knows our inner most being. He knows that we have a tendency to make it personal, even though it is all about Him. And He knows that tendency will lead us down paths of discouragement and destruction in our ministries.
And here, nestled in 2 Thessalonians 1, He sends a message...
Hold tight. It's not about the results. Your perseverance and faith are enough...
It's not about me and it is not about my results or my success or even my failure. It is about my perseverance and faith.
And sometimes I just need to be reminded of that.
author: Kristi
