7 is the
number of completeness and reminds us that Christ is our life, and He makes us
complete. Literally Jesus completes our
life through what He does in and through our lives.
It is daily that God is completely us.
He is working in me. Is He
working in you? Do you see it? As we push into what God says and listen
intently to what He says that is a definite move toward completeness, toward
strength and perfection. No, we cannot
and will not be perfect till we get to Heaven, but God is perfecting us.
The Bible
talks about what love does to our lives, but what I want to point us to even
more is the fact that the presence of God’s love is the stamp of fact that God
is at work. Love is a given. We need love.
We want love, but to love as God loves, that is unconditional love, is
not typical. It is a different kind of
love if you will. God’s love through us
shows that God is in us and is changing us.
The fruit of
the Spirit is one more place where this is real. The life changed by God bears fruit in
incredible ways. There is life change,
that leads to character change which leads to living changed all because of
what God did.
But
the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There
is no law against these things!
That is
clear. When God comes in, He transforms
our lives. Wait. When God comes in, He completes our
lives. That’s even clearer. God completes us and brings us to the best
that we were created for. No, we are not
perfect. But we are growing more and
more to be like Jesus.
Romans
12:2 NLT
Don’t copy
the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new
person by changing the way you
think. Then you will learn to know God’s
will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
When God
tells us to love others, He is reminding us that He created us to be in
relationship with Him and with other people.
Further God tells us that we are to continue to loving people. That means that loving people is a choice we
must make. God is in us. God loves us.
God loves through us which changes us and changes the people we love.
John
13:34-35 NLT
So now I am
giving you a new commandment: Love
each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love
for one another will
prove to the world that you are my disciples.
Love proves
that God is in us and is changing us.
Love is the evidence that the Spirit of God is the one we are following.
1
John 4:18-19 NLT
Such
love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment,
and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We
love each other because he loved us first.
The love of
God, perfect love, is changing us. His
love is removing fear from our lives.
The wrong kind of love doesn’t get rid of what we are afraid of. God replaces fear with faith by allowing His
love to grow bigger and bigger in our lives.
God’s love is making us more and more like Jesus. He gives us confidence like nothing else can.
I need
that. I want that. Let God continue to work in your life and
make you more like Jesus. He is
perfecting you each day and each moment of each day.
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