Love and Fruit

Happy New Year!  I had a great New Year's Eve.

Emily and I celebrated by going to one of Jeff's (Emily's boyfriend) gigs.  That's him on the drums...

And I got to hang out with my sweet friends Christen and Joy, for Christen's birthday!  Bet you didn't know that all those fireworks the other night were for her!

I have pretty friends.  And they're really great, too. :)  Oh, how I'll miss these lovelies.

On another note...

This weekend, God pressed upon me two things that I need to start doing more intentionally...
- Freely love people
- Produce much fruit

1 John 4 tells us that God's love is Perfect- it drives out fear!  And without fear, we are free to love God and others as we were made to.

"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

This is how love is made complete among us

so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment:

In this world we are like Jesus.  There is no fear in love.

But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.

The one who fears is not made perfect in love."

1 John 4:16-18

We were born into a world that doesn't know what love is.  Oh, we think we do- but really what the world teaches us as "love" is a misconstrued idea of love placed in our minds by Satan, the father of lies.  He's really good at taking something and twisting it just a tiny bit so that it still looks like the original, but is a far cry from it.  He likes to twist love to make it look like selfishness, greed, lust...

When we become followers of Christ, God takes His Perfect Love and places it in us.  He, therefore, has made us free to love as love was intended, and created us to be the vessel by which He shows the world His Perfect Love.

"The more completely you devote yourself to Me, the more freely you can love people"

Jesus Calling, December 30

But displaying that love requires abiding.

John 15 is all about abiding and producing.  Our continual abiding in Him, seeking Him, loving Him, worshiping Him, and study of His Word creates an availability in us and opportunities to be used by Him.  And that leads to the production of much fruit in our lives for His Kingdom.

"Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me... My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends... You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.  This is my command: Love each other.

John 15:4,12-13,16-17

My 2012: ABIDE