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PERSONAL
TESTIMONY
From one Christian woman to another
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Beloved, let us love one another:
for love is of God.
~I John 4:7
I remember the first time the Lord pricked my heart with I John 4:7 was in 1994 when my four-year-old daughter and I were listening to a children's song cassette in the car. These little children's voices were singing "Beloved, let us love another... for GOD IS LOVE."
Reasoning with God
I was still going through a marriage crisis then and trying with all my might to love my husband. As a Christian woman, I knew I was supposed to love my husband but I just was numb from the crisis.
I asked God all sorts of questions about love and what it was and what it meant and why I was supposed to love and how I was supposed to love when I was so hurt. Then this simple children's song quoting this Scripture hit me like a ton of bricks. God is love and love is of God.
Hearkening to God
When I looked up these verses, the Spirit revealed to me that I could not love anyone, including God, in my own power; it was when I began living through Him (whatever that meant) that I could love.
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Then I saw that verse at the end. "He hath given us of His Spirit" (1 John 4:13). I cried and cried because I had no idea what all of this meant or why God was showing me this particular verse right now through my daughter's children's song.
So I began meditating on God is love. Love is of God. I sang that song over and over again in my head.
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Join me in these singly focused meditations on God is Love by signing up for the Guided Meditations.
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God’s Love Outpoured
I was so distant from everyone at this time. One day my mother and my best friend called me and wrote me a letter, respectively, and asked me why I was shutting them out of my life.
It was so weird because I wasn't purposely doing that, and both my mother and my best friend live hundreds of miles from me (my mother lives 300 miles from me in Pennsylvania and my best friend lives 2000 miles from me in Colorado). How did either of them know that I was shutting people out?
They both told me, “I love you.”
There it was again: love.
God’s Word also ministered to me at this time. I pray these in-depth meditations on the Levitical Sacrifices will minister His love to you as well.
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It meant so much to me that God would use them to love me, a struggling and hurt Christian woman, even though they were miles away.
Through this experience, I began learning about one-anothering and the Church—how God uses His people to minister His love to each other if they are sensitive to His Spirit.
Thank You, Lord!
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Thanking God
Many other things were happening during this time, but I began thanking God for His love for me (fact) until I eventually believed (faith) that He really did love me. Love was all a mind thing at the time. I had no emotion.
Responding to God through Obedience
So I began "loving" my husband with my mind. I believed I loved him because God loved me, and so I loved him the best I could as God was living in love in my mind. Even though I didn't feel loving, I began obeying God with my mind and through my actions towards my husband.
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PROCESS
OF
SPIRITUAL
GROWTH
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The process that the Lord takes a Christian woman through to grow her into Christ, her Head, begins with responding to the Lord through obedience... no matter how she feels. As she obeys, the Spirit will renew her mind about the facts. When she knows the facts through meditating on them, she can begin to apply them by faith as she acts upon what she knows to be true.
Emotions will follow fact and faith.
That has been my process time and time again as God gently leads me through the sanctification process.
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To love is to be self-less.
God was Self-less when He sent His son to die for you. Jesus was Self-less when, for the joy set before Him, He endured the cross (Hebrews 12:2).
In your marriage, by purposefully choosing to obey God (not to obey man) through cooperating with Him to love your husband by an intentional act of your will, He will take you to the cross and mortify the flesh—deprive it of its power.
The resulting selflessness, emptiness—because of His powerful, transforming love for you and in you—will make room for Him to fill you, an obedient Christian woman, with His Spirit so you can experience liberty and joy on the on the other side of the cross.
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Heart to Heart to the hurting Christian woman
His agape love growing in you, as you die to self-ways and stop trying to apply man’s interpretations of the Scriptures, will move you from
Christ will become your Head as you apply five freeing principles to strengthen your marriage and your individuality.
Vision for your future:Two shall indeed become one—the triune one: husband, wife, and God, each maintaining their individuality—while validating each another through mutual love, honor, and respect.
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Birth Your agape love in us, Lord, as we cooperate with You
through obedience.
Everyone who loves is born of God. ~1 John 4:7
GUIDED
MEDITATIONS
Learn more about all the Reading Guides here.
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I pray this simply focused four-week Guided Meditation will bless you, as you apply—by faith— the fact that God loves you:
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Other articles in this “Spiritual Growth of a Christian Woman” series:
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