Bridget's Blessings

This should really be titled Beth's Blessings because this is not an original idea. But now that I think about it, none of Bridget's Blessings are original. I have learned them all through other people.

Here's what we'll do: we will all understand that these are blessings that I have received and am now sharing with others. Like the last line in Desert Song says "The seed I receive I will sow".

Life Lesson #3

Forsake Ambition For Affection

I have been doing the Bible study titled Beloved Disciple by Beth Moore (yes, I do alot of her studies) and that is where God first introduced me to this idea. Beth's encouragement for us was to learn from the man that really believed - KNEW - that Jesus loved him and in the confidence of that knowledge chose to forsake ambition for the higher calling of love. Her focus is mostly on forsaking doing great things for God in favor of being loved by God and loving God back.

Beth never said or even implied that we shouldn't strive for anything. That we shouldn't set goals or learn or try. She did pose this question though: "If I am never used by God in a way that I deem significant, can I still believe that I am loved like the apple of His eye?" Interesting.

This is not a post to encourage or enable people to sit on their butts and do nothing. God has a purpose for us and we need to be about doing it. What this post is about is coming out from under all the self-imposed or world-imposed or, heaven forbid, church-imposed things we feel we need to achieve and finding the freedom in realizing it is not about us or what we do. It is about Jesus and what He did. And to really, truly fall in love with our God, the Creator of the Universe, that first loved us and sent His son to die our death. And out of that love to love others, even in the small ways that seem insignificant. And, I am suspecting, to find at the end of our lives that we did exactly what we were purposed to do.

The apostle John, when in his old age and unable to do much, would repeatedly remind his disciples to 'love one another'. After hearing this time and time again, the disciples asked John why he kept telling them this. His response is liberating:

"Because Christ commands it, and if it alone is done it is enough."

Bridget

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" Matthew 22:36-39

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! 1 John 3:1

This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 1 John 3:11