Faithbase

Hey folks, I want to pause for just one day in here as we're talking through 1st Corinthians 13. If you're just jumping in, we've been going through the section on the perfection of love. And it's my hope that as you are hearing these things and reflecting on your own ability to love in the people in your life, that you are getting a sense that you really can't do this or that it's just plain impossible because Jesus wants the Holy Spirit to empower this kind of love in your life towards the people around you. This is not meant to be a self-empowered, pull-myself-up-by-my-bootstraps kind of muscle, the perfect kind of love towards the people in my life, nope. We need transformation in here in order to exhibit and express this love to the people around us. And that is meant to be a transformation of the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ at work in our lives. You're familiar probably, hopefully, with the fruits of the Spirit. The Spirit is meant to produce in us a certain kind of response and behavior. And the first thing listed is love. It's not meant to be in our own power. Here's four things we can do as we're asking the Holy Spirit to come and exhibit and empower us to live love in this world. The first thing is ask, Luke 11, Jesus talks about how God is faithful to give us the Holy Spirit when we ask for it. So if Jesus is telling us that, then we ought to believe it. When we ask, God is going to give and he's going to provide. It may not be ahead of time, it may be in the moment. So as we are asking, we need to pause. That's our second thing. We're going to pause and we're going to ask the Lord to come into our lives to transform us. The third thing we're going to do is we're going to move. Because you can't just wait around for it to happen. One thing I've come to realize is that God is a God of movement and action and he wants to meet us in the moment so that we can learn how good he is and that we can trust him to be faithful and meet us and empower us for what we're asking for. Last thing, we're going to reflect. We need to really consider, how have I loved the people in my lives today? Has it gone the way of the Spirit? Has it gone the way of my flesh, which is going to be no good? There's a beautiful prayer called the prayer of examine and maybe we'll talk about it at some point, but you can look it up. Just helps us to kind of consider, God, where did I see you today? Where were you at work in love today, in my relationships? Stay strong, folks. I know this is not easy, but with the power of the Holy Spirit, all of this is possible. God bless you.