Love. Claim the fruit of the Spirit.

No worries, I'm not trying to define love in 250 words or less. The Bible does that: I'm no Bible.

But what's interesting to is that we has an amazing sermon this Sunday Mr. Dennis Sims brought it to the pulpit and was not afraid to talk directly to both our youth after their D-Now weekend and to our church about responsibilities involving loving like Christ and even specifically in the family, friend, work, and romantic relationships around us.

1 John has a lot to say. It's a recommended read that I'll need to commit to memory.
CHAPTER 3
¹¹This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.
¹⁶This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
²³And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. ²⁴Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
CHAPTER 4
⁷Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

(Note: Read the whole thing... it's worth it.)

But what struck me this weekend, and what hits me every once in a while. I remember the times specificically: last time I was sitting in Van Texas in the activity center staff worship on a Friday night... and this time it happened to be Valentine's Day weekend.

I'm overwhelmed by the way God loves me. IT's usually sparked by the way those around me love me so well. I know I do not deserve it, and I cannot possibly repay it...and that leads me to Christ.

Oh how incompetent I am to love him. Oh how I fail him every day. I'm reading through the Bible now and I'm yelling in my heads at the remnant left in Isreal in Jeremiah and telling then "No! don't go to Egypt, don't burn incense, just follow God!" yet I seen to do the same. Oh I am overwhelmed by his love, when I don't deserve it.

But then I have to claim his gift. God gave me Christ. He has sought me out, romanced me, loves me, sent his Son to die for me, so that I may be a co-heir to the throne. No i do not deserve it but He has made me worth it.

And so I must claim the fact that I am filled with the Holy Spirit and the fuit of the spirit is Love. I have been given the ability to love like He loves. I may just have to pray like crazy for it.