If You Were The Only One

     If you were the only one with a heart filled with love, where did your love come from? If you were the only fountain flowing in a desert, from where did you get your water? If you are the only blossoming flower in a garden, from where did you get your beauty? And if you are the only sheep that is left among a large pack of wolves, from where did you get your peaceful nature? These are good questions to asked ourselves, if we think that we are surrounded by evil and that we also think that we are the only one that is holding on to love, wisdom and righteousness.

     Yes, when we think that we are standing alone, where is our strength, our determination coming from? We may feel abandon and alone but we are determined to carry on despite everything that is going on around us. What is making us to persevere under our hardship? 

     The answer I believe is that we will never abandon our faith. We will not stop caring and loving because others have given up on it. Even if we may feel that we are all alone in our beliefs, we will never give up on them. For some reason, doing what is right and good is written within our hearts and we follow that code no matter how bad our world has become (Hebrews 8:10). We carry God's light within us and it makes us happy to express it anyway that we can. If this makes us strange or an outsider to others, then so be it. We cannot be anything other than ourselves. 

     When you feel you are just giving and you are not receiving anything back; how do you still keep on doing good and not become cynical? Because you refuse to give in to your sadness and hurt others, instead you hold on to your belief to be peaceful, to do good and to love one another. If no one is giving you anything for all the good that you are doing, why keep doing it? Because there is more to us than our fleshly desires, we live by the Holy Spirit and we want to do good over evil. Our love for our God and his words are far greater than anything that is within our world. We want to please him and to do his will. We are made more happy by serving our God, than by serving the world. 

     Even if we believe we are alone, we are not alone for God's spirit is always with us. We feel God's spirit even when we feel that we are isolated. If the whole world were to turn against us, we would still hold tight to our love, for it is God's precious gift to us and we will never throw it away. Seeing the bad in the world sickens us but doing what is good heals us. We are God's children and we want to do what is right, even if we feel the whole world is doing what is wrong. What keeps us going is God's spirit which strengthens us. Externally we may not get anything back but internally God's spirit energizes our soul. Psalm 46:1,2 "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. ²Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,"

     I wrote this post because I wanted to remind myself and to tell others that we are not alone. If we feel that we are abandon and alone, all we have to do is to look within ourselves and see the spirit of God that is at work within us. You still do good when others are doing bad. You still hold on to your love, when others seem to abandon theirs. Why? Because God is standing next to you and helping you through your hard times. He is empowering you with power of his love and his spirit. He is protecting you from the darkness that is around you and shining down upon you his loving light. Our connection to God is a strong one and it would take a whole lot more than what the world has to break it. If you felt that you were the only one left with God's spirit of love then it was God who put it there and through his spirit, your heart kept it there.

Isaiah 41:10 "fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."    

Who Do You Serve?

     Romans 6:16 "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? " This verse made me think, to whom am I serving, sin or righteousness. Am I letting the sin within me have control over my actions or am I following the spirit of the LORD? I believe, this is where the violence in our world is coming from, from us serving the darkness from within rather than serving the righteousness of God's word.

     Are we obedient to God's commandment to love one another other or do we hate each other? John 13:34,35  "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love another. ³⁵By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." And if someone has hate in his heart and wants to kill. It is clearly stated in God's ten commandments in Exodus 20:13 "You shall not murder." 

     And if you are angry and want to take matters into your own hands, the apostle Paul told us to do this instead. Romans 12:16-21 "Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. ¹⁷Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. ¹⁸If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. ¹⁹Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." ²⁰To the contrary, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head." ²¹Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." The apostle Paul is telling us to live in peace and harmony with those that are around us and leave the vengeance that we may want, for God to do. God wants us to be a living example to our enemies that it is better to do good than to do evil.

     Is it not a whole lot better to serve a God of love rather than spreading evil throughout our world, working together to make it a beautiful place to live rather than ugly one. It is far better to live in a world as a family, than an world full of enemies. This is the will of God, for us to be a family, living in peace, harmony and love. If we all take it upon ourselves and serve God, darkness would have no hold upon our world and murder would not be upon our minds.

     Who do I serve? Everyday I make it my choice to serve God. Even though I may have bad thoughts, I will not act upon them. God gave us free will and I chose to do good over evil. I chose righteousness over the darkness of sin. We can bring about a greater change to our world by serving God, than we ever could by spreading evil through fear and violence.
   
     Galatians 6:9 "And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up."     

Where does Your Love Come From?

     Where does your love really come from, from within yourself or from others? I asked this question to myself because sometimes I do not feel I have love within my life.
      I wonder how did the apostle Paul kept feeling loved while he was still in prison. He did not turn bitter, nor did his heart turn to hate. It was the same way with Job, when the devil took all that he had away from him. Job's love did not lose strength. He still loved God with all of his heart. Those two men showed me from where their love flowed not towards the material world, but towards God.
     I wanted to know, what is the difference between their love and those who do not believe in God? I notice this about myself and about most of the people in our world that we really care what people think about us and how they view us. We want to feel accepted and that we belong somewhere, we want to feel their love. However if we get ignored or the people around us are negative instead of positive, we will begin to believe we are not wanted or even loved at all. We heavily rely on the opinions of others to how we feel about ourselves.
     Now think about how we would feel if we did not believe in God for our support and we were put in prison unjustly and everything and everyone was taken away from us. We would not feel loved, we would feel rejected. The outside sources for our approval and love would be gone. We would be on our own, probably with bitter feelings and self pity. Hating the world around us for what it have done to us.
     So how did the apostle Paul and Job maintain their love through the harsh conditions that they went through. The answer; Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through him who strengthens me." God never abandoned apostle Paul or Job, his spirit was always with them. They felt the love of God within their heart and they never felt separated from him.
     When I am alone, sometimes depression comes over me and I feel sad and lonely. In this dark state of mind, I feel that I am not loved. What really saves me from this condition and brings me back into an happier state of mind is reading the Bible. God's spirit somehow works through his word and brings strength back into my weakened condition. It's like a fountain bubbling forth water into a dry desert, bring life back to what was dead. All I can say it is, miraculous! For me I found from where my love comes from, it is not from others even though having people around you who love you is very good; I found my main source of love is from God's spirit that pours into me. I believe it is the same love that the apostle Paul and Job experienced.
     I believe to experience love you must first reach out in order to receive. When you reach out to others and to God your heart touches theirs, a connection is made. Sometimes with others they will return your need for connection but with God you can count on him every time. When you reach out to God, he will reach back to you, touching your heart with his loving spirit. His love lifts you up and makes you feel loved and happy. In my feeling of God's love, all I want to do is to rejoice and praise him. In this dark world that we live in, God is always my guiding light, my main source of love and my savior.