The Love of God

I have recently been blown away with the love that Jesus has been manifesting to my heart. It seems that everywhere I turn He appears and I LOVE it.

 I love how he steals me away when I'm attempting to do homework.

 I love when he sneaks up behind me in class and kinda freaks me out.

 I love how He surprises me and makes me start laughing.

 I love His voice. 

I love it when He laughs. 

I love it when he holds my hand. 

I love how incredible of a writer He is.

 I love how generous He is. 

I love dancing with Him 

I love what He creates

I love His back massages (Yes He does give them. He is real and practical after all)

I love His patience

I love His power.

I love that He listens

I love going out for coffee with Him

I love watching him play football. 

I love that He risked everything for a chance at my heart

I simply love HIM

and the best part of all this is He offers this kind of relationship to ALL of us, not because of what we do but because of what HE did. He is truly amazing. For so many years I tried to figure out how to get this love. For so many years I felt like it had to be earned. Then one day He freed my heart and love gushed in. It was something that He did. I'm not totally even sure how exactly it happened. It was kinda like God saying, "You don't have to really DO a bunch of stuff to fix the problem of receiving love by DOING." That doesn't even make sense. haha Fail Christy.  It was simply something He did because it was something I could never do on my own. Receiving is often harder than giving. But if we never receive His love, than we can never receive what we were created for-a real living relationship with Him.  It doesn't matter what you've done or haven't done. God wants to love on you. He longs to romance your heart. Receive His love. It's for you and He wants to give it to you on greater levels than you can imagine. 

Walking by faith

So I've been thinking quite a bit lately about faith. I've also been reading quite a bit about faith seeing as how I have had to read Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Job in the last week for class.  Let's just say my brain is a tad overstimulated and having quite the time processing everything that is currently passing through it. But studying the Bible is truly epic. It blows my mind and I love having God blow my mind.

Sitting down going into the word, you read about all of these amazing people who practiced living out faith. Noah built an ark when it had never rained. Abraham went to the promised land even though he didn't know where he was going and he lived there even when he didn't posses it. Isaac and Jacob also received this promise in faith. You could go on and on about all of these people who lived out faith. But what if God was to sit down and write out a story of each of our lives?  What if we were the ones who were to sacrifice the fulfillment of everything God had promised us on an alter? What if we were the people leaving Egypt and going to the promised land? What if He asked us to walk on water? What would God write? Would He say that we were individuals of great faith? Would He say that about me? Do my actions exhibit the reality of what God says even when I don't see it? Do my actions show that God's promises exist when my eyes say that the promises are not reality?  I believe there are times when God loves to stand behind us, cover our eyes with His hands and ask, "Will you trust me to lead you? Will you walk with your eyes closed?" Faith without works is truly dead. If I say I have faith and trust in God and then never live it out, what good are my words?  If we are going to show God that we really do have faith, we have to take that first step that He asks of us. We have to walk off the cliff even when it seems like there isn't going to be anything to hold us up. And when we do, we find that God truly does know what He's doing. What a surprise! He never fails His children. He didn't fail Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, Samuel, Peter or anyone else in history who has truly trusted Him. But is He really what we trust in? Is He what we bank on? Do we allow ourselves to go to a place where Jesus is truly all we have left? It can be a terrifying place to allow ourselves to go because we often feel like we have no control. But we will never truly live until we reach that point. And it all starts with simply believing God's Word and stepping out on what He has said.