Real Love

If you read my posts last week about the greatest commandments, then this scripture is for you.  This is found in 1 John 3:18-24 (The Message.)

When We Practice Real Love

 ^18-20My dear children, let's not just talk about love; let's practice real love. This is the only way we'll know we're living truly, living in God's reality. It's also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves.

 ^21-24And friends, once that's taken care of and we're no longer accusing or condemning ourselves, we're bold and free before God! We're able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we're doing what he said, doing what pleases him. Again, this is God's command: to believe in his personally named Son, Jesus Christ. He told us to love each other, in line with the original command. As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit he gave us.

Isn't that fabulous?  I love the wording "debilitating self-criticism."  Can you relate?  I know I can!  Over the years of talking with my Christian brothers and sisters about the ups and downs of our journey with the Lord, I have heard way too much of this "debilitating self-criticism."  While the Lord loves a humble heart, I have known so many people who are stuck...simply paralyzed...by a debilitatingly critical view of themselves and how they think they "ought" to be.  Yet, in these verses, it appears that John is gently reminding us that REAL love is the antidote for that "paralysis of analysis."  Whether we think too highly of ourselves or we think too little of ourselves, thinking too much about ourselves can keep us stuck.  The two commandments that Jesus valued most highly--to love God with all our hearts, souls and minds and to love our neighbors as ourselves--set us free to receive the life God has planned for us.  Real love, it seems, is the cure for debilitating self-criticism and perhaps, the path back to a healthy, invigorating love for ourselves as well.

Comments

[Maren]

I have just loved your last couple of entries (of course, I love them all)! These scripture verses are so simple and yet have such a profound message. Thank you for focusing on them and sharing them with us!

[Rosilyn]

Kelly -- Oh, how we can read scripture but not assimilate it -- Thanks for previewing these particular scriptures for me -- so much wisdom in such a familiar passage. Love ya, Rosilyn

[impotenta]

I`m from Romania, but everyday i come back and read your blog. You know why? Because it makes my day. Thanks

[Kelly]

Dear friend from Romania, thank you so much!! I am so blessed that my humble musings have the power to touch a heart a world away. Isn't God amazing??

[Phillip.Ware]

Thanks.I was loved by God to be loved.Love is the powerful tool in personality.Jesus showed how much God loves us by hanging on the cross for us to take the salvation.That is the greatest love that I can say.So thanks for the kind of love that you have to share the real love that God placed in you to the ones that they don't kwow it.God will bless you.
Keep pressing on.