Has God ever slowed you way down as you read His Word? His Spirit gently nudges me into this slow-motion encouragement, many days! One day, I was overwhelmed by my body’s pain alongside the incessantly fear-full noise of the news, the divisive slander of Christians against one another, and the horrific ongoing global suffering since Genesis 3…all of it described for us in Revelation.
We’re waiting for it all to end…at the end, on the last day. Jesus promises He is returning, beloved in Christ. And it will be entirely over, forever!
What do we do in the meantime? “How?” I cried to our Lord. He took me from Revelation into Jude.
I’m fervently praying that His slowed-down “one word at a time” encouragement to me will be yours as well.
KEEP…yourself in the love of God
Who is already keeping us in His love and compassionate mercy, as the bride of Christ?
O love of God, how strong and true,
eternal and yet ever new,
uncomprehended and unbought,
beyond all knowledge and all thought!
(“O Love of God,” Bonar, H., 1861)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,
who by God’s power
are being guarded through faith
for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Pet. 1:3-5 ESV).
O love of God, how deep and great,
far deeper than man’s deepest hate;
self-fed, self-kindled like the light,
changeless, eternal, infinite.
Keep YOURSELF…in the love of God as we wait
It’s personal. So often, we think we’re responsible for others’ hearts. We agonize for lost loved ones. We overwhelm and judge when we see the wreckage of this sin-infested world. When others’ sin wounds us.
So gently, He reminded me that MY heart needs to be the central focus as I focus on His love for me.
Keep YOURSELF.
He released me to simply release every bit of overwhelm about others by keeping MY-self in His love, a self already wholly loved in Christ. What profound healing, comfort, compassion, and blessing.
O heav’nly love, how precious still,
in nights of pain and helplessness,
to heal, to comfort, and to bless!
Keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Tim. 6:14 ESV).
O wide-embracing, wondrous love!
We read you in the sky above,
we read you in the earth below,
in seas that swell and streams that flow.
Keep yourself IN…the love of God
We read you best in him who came
bearing for us the cross of shame;
sent by the Father from on high,
our life to live, our death to die.
We read your power to bless and save,
e’en in the darkness of the grave;
still more in resurrection light
we read the fullness of your might.
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to BE the propitiation for our sins (1 Jn. 4:10 ESV, emphasis added).
Keep yourself in the…LOVE OF GOD!
O love of God, our shield and stay
through all the perils of our way!
Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus (Rev. 14:12 ESV)…
Eternal love, in you we rest,
forever safe, forever blest…
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him (1 Pet. 3:21b-22 ESV, emphasis added).
Praise to our Lord of love as we wait!
We will exalt you, God and King,
and we will ever praise your name…
Praise to our alive Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who prays to our Father for us, as His beloved bride who are waiting to feast with Him!
I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth (Jn. 17:15, 17 ESV).
we will extol you ev’ry day,
and evermore your praise proclaim.
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it (1 Thess. 5:23-24 ESV).
Keeping ourselves in the love of God, with His love songs
Sister in Christ, if you’re also overwhelmed by so much, this week’s playlist gift is to help both of us keep ourselves in the love of God as we wait to see Jesus physically! Are there songs of love and adoration? Of course! Are there songs of His love for us? Many! Let’s focus our hearts on God’s compassionate love, as He enables us to love Him and others in the process.
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