As I read today's entry in one of my devotionals, God Calling: by Two Listeners, I was led to write the following in my journal: "Finding joy in doing my will means listening obediently for your call to step out on faith. It means reaching out to those in need even if you don't know how you're called to help them; it means speaking truth even if that truth hurts; it means hugging and loving the unlovable. Finding joy in your life can only happen when you find joy in me".
God does not call us to find joy in our own self-serving efforts, but in reaching out to others and building a relationship based on the love that he is calling us to offer the world (even those who hurt and persecute us). Remember John 3:16? Yes, that is the kind of love the God of love is calling us to give: sacrificial, limitless, brimming over -- love for the unlovable, the marginalized, the broken, the sick... the list goes on.
How do we carry out His will to love as he loved? By finding joy in doing all he has called us to do for all, even those we think are not worthy of love. How can this be achieved? When we spend time in His presence loving and listening; allowing him to cleanse us from the inside out, showing us who we are in him, and healing from our past sins, from the chains that have kept us bound and chained to our past and the lie the enemy wants us to keep believing. Once we own up and accept our past for what it is -- the past -- and we discover who and whose we are, God will use us and guide us into obedience, and once we obey, we will be willing (and able) to act. Abiding in God's presence will lead us on a path to finding joy in our lives.
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