Love Never Fails

We have learned much from the people we sought to  help but  left unchanged, even wounding us as they went.  We were always faced with the same question, “Would we do it again?”  And time and time again we found ourselves saying, “Yes!”  The reason has nothing to do with what we have received from the one we were helping, because much of the time, they had nothing to give.  It has  more to do with the powerful effect loving others had on us.  When you are in the place of giving love, especially when there is no return, harm never comes in giving love - IF it's God’s love. This is a secret that the devil always seeks to hide.  He cloaks it in a false coverings of what we deserve, our rights, and similar considerations that always revolve around "self."  His lies say, “They should give their part, then I will give mine.”    But the truth says -“God so loved the world that HE GAVE…”  We love HIM because He first loved us…”  We become the ones changed by His LOVE that compels us to pour out our lives.  This must have been why JESUS was so filled with righteousness, joy, and peace, as he walked the earth.  This is  why it is more blessed to give than to receive.  Grace is always poured out on the one who pours it out on others.  Why should grace come to those who want it for themselves alone.

True-love's finest hour comes when we have been hurt - without being harmed.  Learning to give even when it hurts is walking by faith.  Those loving this way will experience the very heart of God, and through the process we will become perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. 

"The principles of gain through loss, of joy through sorrow, of getting by giving, of fulfillment by laying down, of life out of death is what the Book teaches, and the people who have believe it enough to live it out in simple, humble, day-by-day practice are people who have found the gain, the joy, the getting, the fulfillment, the life." ~Elisabeth Elliot

The breaking of the alabaster box and the anointing of the Lord filled the house with the odor, with the sweetest odor. Everyone could smell it. Whenever you meet someone who has really suffered; been limited, gone through things for the Lord, willing to be imprisoned by the Lord, just being satisfied with Him and nothing else, immediately you scent the fragrance. There is a savor of the Lord. Something has been crushed, something has been broken, and there is a resulting odor of sweetness. --Watchman Nee

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, your heart will change. Safe, dark, motionless, airless—your heart will become impenetrable, irredeemable. The only place outside of heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and risks of love... is hell. We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it."~C.S. Lewis


Above pictured:  Ezra Davis praying HARD. :)