Blemished People

[Coconut]

"If you choose to love, you will be misunderstood, you will be betrayed, you will be rejected by the [very] people who most desperately need the love you have to offer.

We are blemished people, and in order to [truly] love anybody, in any way, we have to expose that part of us that we’d rather keep hidden. Our own selfishness, our own fears, our own hangups, and it’s embarrassing. So humiliating. But you keep on loving.”

--Rich Mullins

Love that wears a mask of detached politeness can only be self love. Self love is most evident in its refusal to bare its heart, to let others get too close, too familiar, to get to know the real you. Self love says I will not expose my heart to hurt, pain, rejection, humiliation.

Compare self love with God`s love. Christ loves extravagantly. He connects with the crowd, He weeps with them, He laughs with them, He reaches out to them in compassion, He asks "how are you" and actually wants to know the answer, because if you need anything, He is so willing to do everything He can to help you. He bares His heart, even though He knows they will pierce it through and through.

Compare self love with a child`s love. Children love extravagantly. Children love with all the passion God placed in their little hearts, and will give smiles to strangers that would put most of us to shame. Christ commands us to be like a child. This is the love that carries with it a promise of "blessed are you"


Love like there is no tomorrow, and if tomorrow comes -- love again. - Max Lucado

 

[El Hombre viejo]

"If you choose to love, you will be misunderstood, you will be betrayed, you will be rejected by the [very] people who most desperately need the love you have to offer.

We are blemished people, and in order to [truly] love anybody, in any way, we have to expose that part of us that we’d rather keep hidden. Our own selfishness, our own fears, our own hangups, and it’s embarrassing. So humiliating. But you keep on loving.”

--Rich Mullins

Love that wears a mask of detached politeness can only be self love. Self love is most evident in its refusal to bare its heart, to let others get too close, too familiar, to get to know the real you. Self love says I will not expose my heart to hurt, pain, rejection, humiliation.

Compare self love with God`s love. Christ loves extravagantly. He connects with the crowd, He weeps with them, He laughs with them, He reaches out to them in compassion, He asks "how are you" and actually wants to know the answer, because if you need anything, He is so willing to do everything He can to help you. He bares His heart, even though He knows they will pierce it through and through.

Compare self love with a child`s love. Children love extravagantly. Children love with all the passion God placed in their little hearts, and will give smiles to strangers that would put most of us to shame. Christ commands us to be like a child. This is the love that carries with it a promise of "blessed are you"


Love like there is no tomorrow, and if tomorrow comes -- love again. - Max Lucado

The love of JESUS was extravagant!! Oh how true! A total giving of self....Loved us unto the very laying down of HIS life. How would it be if all HIS family followed that example? The unsaved would be coming into the family in droves.
Yet when a Christian dares love like this, he/she experiences persecution as you say. Have you ever wondered why most of this persecution comes from other Christians?

 

[Fragrant Grace]

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins
1 John 4:10

Beautiful thought provoking posts Coconut and El Hombre viejo
Let us strive to live and love like Jesus
To be extravagant in sharing His love
O that this world may see a little of Jesus shining through us
More love
More Jesus

A little Spurgeon below, that I have been reading today,




Oh! this love of Christ; it is beyond all degree, standard, or compass. In comparison with it, other love, high and noble as that other love may be, dwindles into insignificance.
(Spurgeon...Herein is Love)

Oh that we might love our Lord for His own sake,
Love Him because He is so supremely beautiful that a glimpse of Him has won our hearts, and made Him dearer to our eyes than light.
Oh that all true and faithful disciples of our beloved Lord would press forward towards that state of affection,
and never rest till they reach it!
(Spurgeon... Best Beloved)

 

[stephen]

We are all blemished....seriously blemished.

Only Jesus, only in Him are our outrageous blemishes covered, by His sacrifice on the 'cross'

I don't have to worry, the sacrifice on calvary cross gives me, and all who trust in Him, assurance that we are saved from eternal wrath, as we regularly meet to remember Him, and share together in the remembrance of His death on our behalf.