God's Love

So today is, was, Valentines Day. The day when everyone wants to be shown love by someone. Thinking back to last year, though people repeated it over and over to me, I didn't feel loved. It wasn't true love. It wasn't love I experienced inside me. I knew my family loved me. I knew my friends loved me. But there was something greater missing. Last year, it was God's love that, though I knew was true, I needed to feel. A lot has happened since then. I got some nursing experience, got a job, got an apartment, got some more nursing experience, made new friends, etc. Obviously, there are more things between there, but here are some lessons God has taught me over the last few months.

• John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life."
• God loves me as an individual and will do whatever it takes to save me. He won't give up until He finds me.
• In heaven, God will return back the inheritance that was meant for us in Eden, for Christ's sake.
• God listens patiently when I talk, though He already knows my side of the story.
• God had a winning plan to save my life from the beginning of creation.
• God loves me unconditionally even though I will never deserve it.
• When I return to God, He does not think to consider me a servant but accepts me back as part of the family. No matter how or why I left. No matter what I did while I was gone, God is happy when I return to Him. 
• When God sees our interest in returning to Him, He runs to embrace us.
• Romans 5:8 "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
• God not only solves the problems we think we have, but also the ones we don't know we have.
• God left heaven to live with us, to show us how to live, to die for us. There is no greater demotion.
• God's timing may not be the same as our timing, but He will fulfill His promises. And His timing is perfect.

It's true. The feeling of being loved doesn't come automatically. That doesn't make the love untrue. Keep believing that God loves you and the feeling will grow. It's not that you are trying to convince yourself of something untrue, but of something that is humanly impossible: to love unconditionally to the point of death. No man would honestly do that for a world who hated him. But God did. And there is nothing that can separate us from His love. Romans 8:35-39 "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ... Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

God loves me! God loves you! Happy Valentines Day!

Faith in the Unseen

Reflections on CAMPUS Winter Retreat 2012

-Psalm 40:8 "I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart."
My desire to do anything come from my heart. Whether it's a good desire or a bad one, that shows the state of my heart. If I desire to do God's will, I will put His law in my heart. If God's law/will is in my heart, I will desire to do His will.

-Job struggled for 42 chapters because he did not see the conversation that happened between God and Satan in 1:6-12. The details of the battle between good and evil are unseen to us. Am I still faithful to God in tough times, though I do not see those details?

-Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal

-Faith is being fully persuaded that God has the power to do what He has promised

-2 Kings 5:1-15 A little no name girl was taken from her family and home country to live with Naaman. Because he listened to what she said, he was saved but physically and spiritually.
---God uses little no name maids
---A disruption of lifestyle may have a purpose
---What am I willing to give up for my salvation and that of others

-God not only solves the problems we think we have, but also the problems we don't know we have

-Those who realize their salvation is free are those who are willing to give the most

-Philippians 2:6-8 "Who, being in the very nature God...made himself nothing...being found in appearance as a man..."
Jesus coming to earth and associating with man, letting us talk to him, at him, about him, correct him, etc, is like a professional chef going to work at McDonalds and letting the employees tell him how to cook a burger and make a sandwich, while remaining calm and not using his knowledge to just change everything.

-Do I live considering what people think of me or considering what God thinks of me?

-Mark 4:35-40 is the story when Jesus is on the boat with His disciples, sleeping during a storm
Even when facing death, we should not be afraid, because God is with us. It may seem sometimes that He doesn't care, that He's sleeping. But He does care and has everything under control!

-Nothing good ever comes from worrying