Lessons learned the first 50 years

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I hit a milestone. I turned 50 years old. I am thankful that I don't feel 50.   I am thankful for things God has taught me throughout those 50 years. .  I have learned that God loves mercy and when I feel a sense that justice needs to happen over mercy, all I need to do is remember that I am thankful for when God gives me mercy instead of a just punishment.   (Micah 6:8 8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.) ( Luke 6: 36  Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. ) I have learned that hurt people end up hurting people.   When I am able to see that I didn't hurt them but I am bearing the results of that persons hurt inflicted by other people, it helps me forgive whatever hurt they pushed onto me and move on.  (Romans 12 : 18  If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. )  I have learned that anyone who thinks they have God
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The call to love

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Today I went to a mini-Seminar with Paul Miller as the teacher. One of his excellent books is Love Walked Among Us. He is preparing to write a book on Ruth and was teaching us some of the nuggets he has learned. He said God has a way of de-centering His heroes. Think about that. Moses, Joseph, David… God showed their weaknesses, but he still used them as heroes. This tells us two things: 1. God can use less -than -perfect people. 2. God is the focus, not the hero. He also talked about how Boaz loved Ruth with a covenant love. ..the same love God has for us..and the same love we should have for our spouses. He said “Marriage is love without an exit strategy.” Oh, if our society would live that way! Then, Paul Miller challenged us to love those around us, even when it is messy, even when it is uncomfortable, even when it isn’t convenient. He said the devil gets us overwhelmed with the size of love that we need to do that, so we pull back and don’t try instead of jumping in and loving those around us….. helping those around us. He points out that the New Testament shows our great ability to overcome problems, ours and others, through love and the great call to love. Here is just a very small sample of that calling.


Mark 12:30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’


Mark 12:33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”


Luke 6:31-33 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that


John 15:12-14 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command.


Ephesians 2:3-5 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.


Ephesians 3: 16 -21 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Go love well,
Rachel

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