Offenses come. They come with out any effort upon the heart of the easily offended. More willing to bear a grudge than respond with love, lovelessness abounds. Yet, offences bead off more easily from the heart who is perfected in love, because the one bearing the fruit of love endures all things. Those that love do not easily give up on LOVE. The scripture says in the last days the love of many will be like a blown out candle of wax, cold and hardened, rather than warm and pliable. The heart will “wax cold” the passage says.

This will happen because of the spirit of lawlessness in the earth increasing in the end times. People will make up their own laws right or wrong. Their laws will serve them, and them alone. They will trespass God’s law to serve their own agenda at the expense of everyone around them. These are those by whom offenses come. They are a cold wind- blowing out what’s left of love in their lives.

Sadly, they may be meeting out the measure of lovelessness given to them, but all too often, even the loved and favored forfeit love for gain, because selfish ambitions rule their hearts over natural affection.

For love they respond with indifference, graduating to intolerance, until there is no real or natural affection left in them. Only the next cold and cruel stage of disdain, that begins to fill their hearts with hatefulness that changes them. Their mouths begin to be filled with bitter barbs to hurt and wound, rather than to give grace, and comfort. Unfortunately, these hurtful actions afflict those that God has assigned to be in their lives, for friendship, for fellowship, for love and support; yet, hatred has filled the ill will of that one choosing to nourish bitter roots, rather than eradicating them from their being, out of obedience to the Father. God tells us to always be on the look out for opportunities that will bring reconciliation. For we, as Christians, are to be ambassadors of the Gospel of Reconciliation. Will we endure the northern winds when they blow upon our lives?

We shall, when close to the warming heart we rest, the nearer to God we be.

The Journey Back To Love

Approaching God with honest submissions of our struggle in forgivness, in grudges and offenses, and misunderstandings- opens up a world of mercy towards us because the Father says, “If you are faithful to confess your sins before me, I am faithful and just to forgive them, and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.”

We do this in supplications and prayers (not forgetting to give thanks to God) we make our desire to overcome lovelessness as a request to be made known to God, who will keep our hearts and minds in HIS perfect peace, when we do so.  See Philippians  chapter 4.

To rid ourselves of bitter roots requires conscious intent. Often addressing issues we don’t even want to look at. We may be in a state of numbness, knowing we don’t even care! Knowing we are that far gone! Going to the Father and telling Him HOW YOU FEEL in all honesty will begin a rehaul in your life, to love again.

It’s about your persuit to being whole, knowing you need it even though you may not be “feeling it.”

In King David’s story we see how he waited on God time and time again for reconciliation rather than justice. David who suffered betrayal by those he loved, over and over again. Who in the end did receive justice, because David’s enemies refused reconciliation. He poured HIS heart out for God to hear his lament over grievous disappointments, wounds that he sustained by those closest to him.  One of those occurrences as written below:

“Had this been my foe, I would have endured the betrayal, but it was a friend, a brother, as one of my own household …”

Psalm 55:12-14 For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him: But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance . We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company.  

Pouring out our hearts to God is the beginning of healing those things that have wounded us so deeply, even when reconciliation is impossible, these honest complaints starts us out on a journey that brings peaceful resolve to our soul, if we continue seeking God in the process. The fact of the matter is sooner or later offenses will come, whether they are real, imagined, or misunderstood, nothing is worth the damage that harboring bitterness causes! For that state of being begins to harm back, multiplied, what was originally suffered. This making our bitter spirit hippocritical and foul in God’s eyes, while we have been forgiven by Him such great trespasses, we refuse to forgive others theirs.

This throws us into turmoil of soul when ever we see that person, or are reminded of an incident involving them or others.

Our soul literally begins to draw back and cringe up on the inside, our mind begins to plot an opportunity for revenge, an occasion to throw an insult, often over something that person has forgotten. We lose our balance, and bitterness and pettiness begins to consume us. When that happens there is no question it’s time to go to the Father and lay it all out before HIM. When we rehearse old offenses over and over again with a strange salty delight to do so, we are vexed with a spirit of bitterness. For our own spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical well being, we need to turn to God for help in eradicating these bitter roots out of our soulish realm. Befor they SPRING UP out of control, where by many become defiled because of the bitterness we spread.

Bitterness  always leads us away from the Father. Bitterness will trouble your physical body and defile others in your sin of unforgivness.

We of the house hold of God need to remind ourselves of the danger of becoming hardened, because of the cruel afflictions of our own. Jesus said, offenses shall come, but woe to them by whom they come. Your insensitivity, your smallness of heart, could be that last straw, that cold wind of indifference, that draws the last bit of warmth from a heart battered, relentlessly, by the lawlessness of others. A pitiful soul that never knew love one iota seeking a glimmer of Christ, in the testimony called you, can get slapped by your coldness of heart. The law of Christ is to love one another, He said, “This is the greater commandment that you Love one another, as I have loved you …Beloved, let us love one another. They that love not, know not God, for God is love.”

Prayer: Lord renew an upright spirit with in me, help me love again, I choose to forgive others because I know that is right. Help me to release all offenses and let them go, for you have forgiven me of all of mine. Let all bitterness in my soul be washed out, cleanse me of its residual effects, help me bring healing to others, let love be my legacy, as I honor you with my life. In Jesus precious name, amen. Repeat as needed! Amen and amen! 

Hope When Love Is Lost 

Another startling condition, is that of one we love, whom has an embittered soul, where that flame of love has gone out, where no stirring, no breath of man can bring it back. Nothing anyone does brings that warmth back, it’s a grave and dark condition. In fact the stirrings and the blowing upon dead coals, or candles, only ensure what was once a flame, is no more. All loving efforts only perpetuates the absolute realization love is gone. But there is this amazing cycle of life that comes after the coldest of winters. This is hope that springs eternally in the power of our God, surrendering to Him the loss of love. Committing into His loving arms the loss of a loved one’s love. It is only the spirit of God that can quicken the dead back to life again. He can, He has, and He wills; but, we must love on, let go, trust and believe, casting our bread upon the waters …. Even the Word of Life who is the bread of life, as a release of our confession of faith, believing in the promise of that day of the restoration of all things- this faithful resolve works with in the inner chambers of the hardest of hearts. Remaining in love in our waiting. It is God’s job to fulfill His promises, it is our Joy to rest in them. Love bears all things, believes all things, because love endures … 1 Corinthians 13:7

Love receives reward

Love will endure the ache of separation, when the love of another has failed, remaining unwavered through the cold gales of winter. For the bud’s pre dawn is dormancy- The Holy Spirit’s stirring is able to awaken life deeply sleeping. Sorrow, loss, grief- suffering endures for the night, but joy comes in the morning! Trust that the wintery trek (given in God’s hands) of the coldest heart, will search for the compelling warmth of love’s hearth. This and our earnest prayers will bring the wearied soul to its (hearth) stones of rememberence, in the days where warmth abounded in the Fathers House! There is victory in Jesus, no matter how long we wait love endures and is empowered to do so. Even if we never get their love back, our goal is to see their return to the Father. This is unselfish love.

Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and go with singing unto ZION, an everlasting Joy shall be upon their heads, there shall sorrow and mourning flee away …

              

When True SPRING Comes

Will you trust them with me? Why do you sorrow so. I am working a work. The one you love is loved even more by me. I am working in the inner workings of soul and spirit, I Am the discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, says The Lord, rest this matter in my hands and do not weather the matter more. Let it not ebb your joy. Your resolve to let go, live on, and leave it to me will hasten the recovery process, where both hearts will learn to rely upon me the more, and less upon one another, as their only source of refuge. The beginning season is here, where the dead seed in the ground, unseen by the eye, is going to be doing its miraculous work. Do you see this? That now faith is the substance of the thing hoped for the evidence of it yet unseen? Faith creates the perfect condition for me to work on behalf of all, in these sacred matters of the heart and soul. Let true spring rise in your soul this is your hope and glory. Christ in you.