All is Full of Love.
Okay, yes. I actually just quoted Death Cab for Cutie b-side lyrics for my deep, intellectual, spiritual, blog of the day (or week/month/year/decade).
Here's the thing.
I was trying and trying earlier to find peace and love. The love that I was seeking I was trying to find from friends, and I don't know where exactly I was trying to find my peace.
A messed up, pre-concieved, version of a god that I just came up with- something that I fit to suit my needs and wants and wasn't anywhere in accordance with Scripture, was where I was trying to find peace, I guess.
It must not have been too genuine though because after all;
"No religion is genuine that is not in accordance with truth",
and
"... religion if it is true must be conformable to God's holy, inerring will- that has to be its standard, otherwise there is little to no value to it".
I really doubt that it was in accordance with my God's Word, whatever it was.
Then, about an hour ago, I had Sebastian (the pod-pod) on shuffle and not necessarily the song itself inspired me, but more just the title.
All is full of love.
Think about it.
ALL is full of love.
Where am I trying to find my all?
From friends? From a computer? From an iPod? From books? From pride? From camp? That last one actually hurts to say because it is so true, that it is insane.
(None of them are bad things at all, unless they bring you further from God & are not glorifying Him, by the way.)
I don't even know, but that question just stuck with me.
Then I started thinking about it. What does the Bible say about love? What is love?
The first thing that I thought of was, of course, "God is love" from 1 John 4:16.
So, in the above list.... were any of the things listed anything that remotely resembled or brought glory and honor to God? Not that they don't, but was I using them to grow closer to Him and to glorify Him?
Nope.
I'm a selfish, fallen, totally depraved human being.
Nothing in me or anything that I was trying to pull off, was bringing Him glory unless He was the good in me.
I was just ugly earlier, nothing else to it.
So, here's the thing, I need to find my God again. I need to seek Him and love Him in all that I do, because only then will I find happiness and love.
So, how exactly?
Well, in my daily readings for Advent, I found this verse from Joel 2.
"Yet even now", declares the Lord,
"return to Me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with
mourning, and rend your hearts and not your
garments."
Return to the Lord, your God,
for He is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in
steadfast love;
and He relents over disaster.
(ESV)
And then to quote a few other verses... (they'll all be from the English Standard Version)
Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.
-Luke 17:33
But this I [God speaking to one of the seven churches in the 2nd chapter of Revelations] have against you, that you abandoned the love you had at first.
Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the works you did at first.
He who has an ear to hear let him hear....
Revelations 2: 3-5, 7.
Be angry [or agitated/unsatisfied with self] and do not sin;
ponder in your own hearts on
your beds and be silent.
Offer right sacrifices, and put your trust in the Lord
Psalm 4: 4-5
For you were called to freedom, brothers.
Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity
for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
Galations 5:13
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things that you want to do.
Galations 5:16-17
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you"
Matthew 6: 33
Aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs and to work with your hands.
1 Thessolonians 4:11
And here are a few epic quotes that I just had to share with you guys.
Let your intellect be excercised concerning the Lord Jesus. Meditate upon what you read; stop not at the surface; dive into the depths...
Abide with your Lord: let Him not be to you as a wayfaring man, that tarrieth for a night but constrain Him...
Hold Him, and do not let Him go.
(Spurgeon)
"If thou love in all thy thought and hate the filth of sin,
and give thy heart to Him that it bought, that He it weld win,
as thy soul Christ hath sought and thereof would not cease,
so thou shall to bliss be brought and heaven won within."
The love of Him overcometh all things,
in love we live and die.
(Anonymus)
"If true religion is to beam on us, our principle must be that it is necessary to begin with heavenly teachings, and that it is impossible for any man to obtain even the minutest portion of right and sound doctrine without being a disciple of Scripture."
"For not only does faith, full and perfect faith, but all correct knowledge of God originate in obedience."
"Error can never be eradicated from the heart of man until the true knowledge of God has been implanted in it"
(John Calvin)
(Haha, yes, I do read a lot of Calvin and Spurgeon in case you couldn't tell. ;] )
So, basically, I need to walk by the Spirit.
Do what God wants me to do, seek Him constantly through His Word & prayer, and through love serve others.
It's easier said then done, but I will accomplish this, because I have my God, who will lead me every step of the way.
He's always there to lean on, and I can't do it by myself, but through Him I am more than a conqueror, because for some reason that I can never find, He loves me.
I will find love.
Not through idiotic, mindless, selfish, material things, but through my Lord.
Through servitude, and dependency, and the knowledge that there is nothing in life that is worth it, unless that is founded on God.
I will find love.
The real kind that does not waver; the love that I can only find through the Lover of my soul.
All I can say right now is that "You are good, and do good", Lord.
<3
