Learning how to love, not cancelling ourselves from loving the way Jesus desires . . .

[com7fy8]

Now, in the United States, we have what is called the "cancel culture". What I understand is that cancel culture is partly a reaction to how evangelicals are working to pass laws which end things like gay marriage and abortion and transgender surgery. Cancel culture can try to shut down political Christian activities, by finding ways to wreck a person's reputation, cause someone to lose a job or business, lose property, or they might stop someone from using the media for evangelical activist purposes.

But, even though this is horrible, we can cancel our own selves from finding out how to love. And failing to love can be so much more harmful than losing your good name and job and property or whatever.

So, here I would like to share about how we need to avoid canceling our own selves from discovering how God our Father has us loving.

Forgiveness is one thing I think of. We can become like Jesus and strong in His way of loving, by being generously forgiving. Of course, we need to trust God to correct us and mature us so we are generously forgiving. And this can help us to do well in our close relationships: the love which has us being all-forgiving is also the love which makes us able to share in intimate relating or marriage and close friendships; but while I am being unforgiving against anyone, this can cancel me from God's generously forgiving love which also is the only real family caring and sharing love.

And so, we need to stay ready in prayer for cancel culture people, ready to love and care about them, ready with forgiveness. We can not live in God's love in sweet and sensitive sharing and at the same time be negative and nasty against problem people.

We need to care with compassion for wrong people, instead of just criticizing and fearing what they seem able to do. Fear of certain people can also cancel us from the loving we can have with ones close to us. Jesus says >

"'And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.'" (Luke 12:4)

If we stay with God and depend on how He is able, then enemy people can not keep us from becoming like Jesus and growing in how we love.

And Jesus on the cross prayed >

"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." (in Luke 23:34)

So, right while evil people were trying to cancel Jesus, He was busy with loving, doing all He accomplished on the cross . . . creating. Our Father used that horrible time for His all-loving good.

So it is for us, then, how with God, no matter what wrong people do, God is able to use it for His all-loving good, even creating with us what we do to love problem people >

But, of course, we need to be all-loving with Him, not only concerned and worrying about how things are going for us and ones close to us.

"For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?" Jesus says in Matthew 5:46. So our own selfish loving can cancel us in ways deeper and more harmful than what even Satanic people might be able to do to us.

So, I find it does me good to always trust God to correct and grow me so I am ready for love and forgiveness with any person. This includes how God corrects our character to be like Jesus so we love like Jesus. It is not only changing and reforming our acting and what we are thinking, but deeper we need character correction. I think Hebrews 12:4-14 is talking about this.

 

[Maria Billingsley]

we ourselves can cancel our own selves from finding out how to love.

Best quote of the week.
Be blessed.

 

[com7fy8]

It is not only changing and reforming our acting and what we are thinking, but deeper we need character correction. I think Hebrews 12:4-14 is talking about this.

Hebrews 12:4-14 says our Father corrects us "that we may be partakers of His holiness." So, it is not what we can get our own selves to do. How God corrects us is what He is able to do. He does not only change our behavior and attitudes, but He changes our character so we are holy. And then our holy character of God's love affects what we do, what we are thinking, and how we are emotionally.

How we are can affect which emotions we can give in to. In the holy character of love, for example, we do not give in to fear >

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment." (in 1 John 4:18)

God is almighty; so, God's love has almighty power to cast out fear so we do not suffer "torment". God's almighty strength is part of His character of love; and as He changes our character to become holy, we share with Him in this strength of immunity almighty against cruel and foolish emotions and feelings which would torment us.

So, God is loving us, indeed, by correcting us His children to become holy.

"For whom the LORD loves He corrects,
. Just as a father the son in whom he delights."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (in Proverbs 3:12)

So, a basic is we need to actively seek our Father for His real correction of our character. But I hear people talking only about how God loves us, but not a word about how He loves us by correcting our character! And they can say they are "sinners", but not a word about how our Father's correction succeeds against sinning and the torments of various anti-love feelings and emotions.

But in the yoke of Jesus, as we learn from Jesus > "you will find rest for your souls," we are guaranteed in Matthew 11:28-30.

However, people can cancel themselves from God's way of loving and sweet and refreshing rest, by not seeking and submitting to His correction > Hebrews 12:4-14.

 

[com7fy8]

God is almighty; so, God's love has almighty power to cast out fear so we do not suffer "torment".

So, I see from this that we can suffer deeply in "torment", because we are not living in the strength and almighty immunity of God's love.

For example, we can be worrying so much about what other people might do to us, and we may even try to change them and control them; but if we are not loving them the way Jesus wants, we can be in weakness so we give in to fear of them and different kinds of "torment" inside ourselves. So we can cancel our own selves from love, while we are so busy with worrying about and trying to control what others are doing.

What helps me is to answer to God first. When I notice how others are wrong and maybe even doing things against me, or I am imagining that they are or will . . . instead of thinking about how to control them, I need to answer to God, myself! And trust Him to have me His way, and then is when I discover God having me to pray for people who are a problem for me. And do not fear, do not self-righteously judge and criticize, but trust God to do what He is able to do with people.

And don't let people cancel me out with fear.

It seems terrorism has a strategy to get people to fear. So, in fighting terrorism, then, one basic part of an effective strategy is to be with God so we do not fear what enemies do or threaten to do. And do not worry, but pray. And do exactly what God has us doing; He will use what He has us do.

"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." (Romans 12:21)

There is always the good which can overcome any evil, at all; and this includes whatever God has us doing.

He will have us pray, and what we do in secret prayer can accomplish more than what a lot of people making public and political noise are trying to do.

Because prayer in God's love will have God's all-loving results. But fear can have us mainly concerned about our own selves and our own country, not loving any and all others as ourselves.

So, while terrorism might seem meant to scare people so they give in to the terrorists, Satan's strategy also is to cancel us from being all-loving like Jesus wants. So, our main battle against terror is to make sure we are with God in His love, not only trying to protect things and people in our own lives and country.

"Test all things; hold fast what is good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21)

Whatever happens, don't let it cancel you with fear or anger or depression or unforgiveness; but test it for however God is able to use it for His good. And test for what God has you doing.

 

[com7fy8]

"Test all things; hold fast what is good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21)

Whatever happens, don't let it cancel you with fear or anger or depression or unforgiveness; but test it for however God is able to use it for His good. And test for what God has you doing.

I have gotten into paranoia that would have me cursing people with my suspicion, instead of caring about them and blessing them in prayer. So - - in my case . . . paranoia is not only some mental sickness thing, but it is actively anti-love. When loving and caring people get sick, they still are loving and kind and considerate.

And an issue of paranoia, for me, is not only if I understand others correctly, but how would paranoia have me dealing with people who are a problem for me? And I notice how I am not loving and creative, but criticizing and imagining how to control people and defeat them . . . not love them and have hope in prayer for what is possible with God for them.

Love "hopes all things", we have in 1 Corinthians 13:7.

Therefore, in my case, paranoid stuff is actively trying to cancel me from loving.

And I have been blessed to have times when my paranoid suspicions have clearly proven wrong. For example, once I could not find something, and right away I assumed my mother took it so I would not use it for socializing in ways she did not like. Then I found the item right where I then realized I had left it!

And I could see that how I could become during paranoia was wrong and not to trust that, but offer myself right away to God for correction.

And when I have gotten paranoid about people in a church doing or saying certain things . . . don't trust and assume what the paranoia is telling me, but let a person speak for oneself about why he or she said or did something. And I have been amazed at the explanations I have gotten - - things which paranoia could not ever make me smart enough or creative enough to consider.

So I have had fun disproving my own stupidity.

 

[com7fy8]

I have some theories, as you might be able to tell, by now. But in any case, we do have Philippians 2:14-16 >

"Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain." (Philippians 2:14-16)

So, God's word clearly says to do everything "without" complaining and arguing, I see from this. And if complaining and arguing are forbidden in our New Testament, then arguing and complaining are >

anti-love.

Therefore, they can cancel us from how we could be loving . . . more or less, I would say.

And what I see here is that God means for us to refuse to give in to anything within us which would even get us started with arguing or complaining. And have the character which keeps us from giving in to that stuff in us, so it can not even get started. And God commands this, because He is the One able to succeed in doing this with us > so we can "become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault" > not later in our next life, but here > "in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation". Because this is possible with God. So, it doesn't matter how we have already failed; any of us with God can do this. God commands this, because He knows this is realistic to expect of us . . . with Him

And this means He changes our character so we are like Jesus and loving like Jesus, and able to stay submissive to our Father in His love and leading. And in His love we are humble so we don't argue, plus we are creative to do and get better than what arguing might get. Plus, God's love has Heavenly beauty of pleasant rest so we are satisfied so we aren't complaining. And so Paul says, then, that if we stop the stuff within us which makes us able to complain or argue, now we can become in our character the way Jesus is, and God's love is . . .

. . . "gentle and lowly in heart" > how Jesus says He is, in Matthew 11:29.

. . . all-loving like our Heavenly Father.

. . . And our Apostle Peter says it is good for wives to have "the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God." This is in 1 Peter 3:4. So, from this I see how God's love is gentle and quiet and this makes us pleasing to our Father . . . the way Jesus is pleasing to our Father, or else this would not be "very precious in the sight of God".

And it looks like Paul is saying our arguing and complaining do n-o-t make us like this. And I agr.

And if arguing is anti-love, it can be a very bad example for children so they can grow up not seeing how to love, not learning how to love in a close relationship like marriage or friendship and ministerial partnership. And this will mean they are deeply not strong, by not being in God's love. And they are not deeply satisfied, so they can be looking who-knows-where to try to get some sort of nice feeling something. And often this means looking away from their own homes, with peers . . . others who have the same problem so that no way are they going to take each other the right way.

And now, then, we see how children of such marriages are turning out. They have come from homes of atheists and of Christian church culture homes. And they are desperate for pleasure and control so they can get their pleasure. And, by the way, their preferences are not sexual, since many preferences are not reproductive; but their preferences are for how they get pleasure!

But pleasure is no substitute for God's love so perfectly satisfying; and worldly pleasure and socializing can not give us almighty power of immunity against all the cruel and nasty stuff of lusts and anger and frustration and boredom and loneliness and depression and unforgiveness and various fears and worries. But in God's love we are in His own power with immunity almighty against all worldly drives and personality damaging feelings and emotions. And this love has us loving any and all people, not only those we use for some sort of social security and pleasures. In God's love we are intimate with God Himself in us, plus in sharing and caring with others who are growing as His family of this love.

Meanwhile, worldly people are desperate for pleasure, willing to get it in quite a variety of ways, and they are intimate not really with others, but they are intimate with their own pleasure feelings which they at times succeed at feeling. And their weakness for foolish pleasure is also weakness for the pain they can suffer "later". And they can quite fear that pain, so they are quite desperate to defend the pleasures they so treasure. And so now we see how ones become because of this.

So, what works? Prayer. Example at home. And know how arguing has been around for quite some time, ruining children so they do not know how to love. And what we see now is just yet another product of what has been in the culture for maybe . . . centuries. But God uses example with prayer. You can be the good in this world, which God uses now.