What I Hear

It's part odd, part funny sometimes to say something and people hear something different.  I look back on a life of hearing what so many people have said and wonder now if I heard what they said or heard something else.  Here's an example.  I've been going to church all my life, going to Bible classes, listening to sermons and what I have heard most of my life was more about how I needed to avoid sin instead of how I need to love God and be obsessed with living for Him.  I wonder if I just heard it all wrong.  Regardless, I am finally coming to understand that an obsession with trying to live right kept me focused on my weakness but and obsession with being close to God, soaking up the fact that I am living in His presence, is keeping me focused on His power.  It seems like such a small thing in words but in my life it is making a very big difference. 

In the old days, when I sinned, I beat myself up and slowly began to convince myself I was just a sinner and would never be more.  These days, when I sin, I realize I have only pulled myself away from the Father, I've only cheated myself out of being in His presence but it is not who I am, just something I did.  Who I am is His son, His loved child who He still desires to be in His presence, soaking up His abundant love. 

For years I lived focus on my need for His grace and mercy.  While I do need that, God is love and that is what I want to be caught up in because I have found that by living in His love, He gives me all that flows from that (grace, mercy, compassion, etc.) and I am drawn closer to Him and live in the growing understanding that being made in His image means that I too can overflow in love. 

My cup overflows when I live in His love.

Grace and peace to you.