Encouragement

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When we reflect back on our
"first true love" there is no
doubt that many wonderful memories come to
mind?  Most of the time these memories are
associated with happiness, feelings of security
and a beautiful innocence that is never quite
duplicated. What a special place of the
heart!  How much more special the person
must be who holds such a sacred position in our
hearts!  Despite the many people that we give love
to and receive love from in our lives, it is little
question that once we experience God's unique love, love
blossoms into an entirely new experience!  Usually
the love that we have come to experience has been
gathered from the people with whom we have had contact,
such as family, friends, and even spouses.  We
all hope to have a positive love
experience from the people that we care about,
however it is only from God that we will ever experience
a love that is 100%
pure.  Our earthly loved ones may
love us with all that they understand love to be (which
can vary from person to person), however it is only God
who can make a promise of love that will always be
perfect. In addition when we make the
perfect "standard of love" our foundation we are
always going to remain anchored regardless of how any
other experiences with love may turn
out.       

 

Next lets look at God's love and
the ways we sometimes limit ourselves from experiencing
it:

There are several characteristics
that sets God's love in a wonderful class all it's
own, and is what makes his love unlike anything we have
ever experienced. These characteristics are
important to understand because sometimes our
perception of God's love can become distorted and
influenced by what we have experience from people in our
lifetimes. Unfortuately no one is expempt from
this, we all imprint our perception of God with a
little of ourselves, what we have been taught about God
from others directly or indirectly by what we have
experienced in life.  We must maintain God as
a unique individual force with his own properties
regardless of our tainted perceptions.  We often
attribute God with flawed human characteristics,
such as being strict, threatening, moody, whimsical,
changable, short tempered, impossible to please.
These are human characteristics
displaced, that resembles more
closely people that we have often crossed paths
with. God must be maintained as himself and
we must elliminate any and every polluted quality
attributed to him from ourselves, people in our past,
even general experiences that we have had in this
world.  How do we shed our confusing ideas,
fears, bondage, politics and tradition of
our own perception, past and present experiences to
discover the real truth about God?  Reduce
him down to his most powerful yet simple property,
the property that embodies him in his purest form,
he is perfect love and goodness at all times
toward us. He never contemplates negative
feelings toward us, or is divided by like and
dislike for us. He is a solid and
consistent God, meaning that he is favorable toward
us at all times, good to us at all times, and is
supportive to us no matter where we are (James
1:17). God is and always has been of "one mind
toward us", and that mind is one of perfect love and
adoration (Jeremiah 29:11).  God
himself is Love, therefore he must be everything
that emobodies the perfect concept of love
described in First Corinthians 13.
 Now add to this another measure that is beyond
anything that we can ask or think, and we would
finally be somewhere remotely in the vicinity of God's
overwhelming love for us. That is how much we are
loved! Essentially complete, that
is our glorious God.

So whether you have experienced love from
other people or you have yet to stumble upon your first
true love experience, God is sure to deliver a type of
love that superceedes by far any love
that you have ever encountered.  However it is
important that we free ourselves of all the baggage that
we carry in order to have a real and truthful experience
with his love. God's love is simply the best!  Who
can be a more perfect candidate for the position of
first true love, than the author
himself (I John 4:8)!

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