. . . the fruit of the Spirit is
love
joy
peace
patience
kindness
goodness
faithfulness
gentleness
and self-control.
There is no law (Jewish Law) against such things.

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." 

This is the first commandment.

The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 

There is no other commandment greater than these.

Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue;

and to virtue knowledge;

and to knowledge temperance;

and to temperance patience;

and to patience godliness;

and to godliness brotherly kindness;

and to brotherly kindness charity.

For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

living water

I am made in the image of God, not your image of God.

What Jesus invites us to is to get down dirty and messy, and to find in the messiness of life the truth of life, and in the messiness of that turth fo find life in its abundance:

to stand alongside those who are victimized and marginalized;

to stand with those who are oppressed;

and to stand with one another just as we are.

And that's another cool thing our Senior Pastor told us.

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No one's lived the life you've lived, nor the life you are about to! No one! None but you. And you can't have his life nor hers nor theirs nor mine. Never! No way. Pretense aside. And why would you want to? Our lives are bigger than any singular experience. Yours probably too. So!!! How about this? Dream again! What if we can catch ourselves in 'good' light, recognize who we are, who we want to be, and allow our dreams to become the new reality? What do you think? Is this possible? Would this be 'bad' for you?

Truly, I can't say about you, but my God did not put a rotten bone in my body, nor rotten flesh, nor rotten skin, nor rotten sinew. The God who loves me gave me an awesome mind and heart and soul as well. The God who loves us encourages and inspires me to go out and explore and discover and grow and to apply what I come to know, to go about and learn more and create then learn again then recreate again and prove for myself how spectacularly awesome and true and magnificent God is! The God who created all that there is inspires me to be in this bond of love toward the betterment of all, not as I see betterment, as a whole. This God of mine is not a liar. But someone is. Truly, I don't know about you. Hi. Hello. How are you? I just got some more good news.

Love ALWAYS hopes.

Love ALWAYS hopes.

Good news! I saw Jesus yesterday! We're spending time together again today. Yes, I mean, really. Yes! Flesh and bones and blood and sinew. Well, I didn't cut him up to find out. Then again, I don't cut up me. Yes, Jesus! A transporter. A transformer. Fun. Fierce. Friendly, Fearless. Fabulous. Love. Goosebumps all ove me - the nice kind. I am seriious. Okay, never mind me; I might be crazy. I find it valuable going out there where life is happening. The beggar. The baller. The bowler. The beast. The dancer. The diver. The digger. The dude. Go out there. Open your eyes, if you may. See! Hahahaaaa! Did you see Jesus? Or maybe not! My eyes have a special touch. Shazaam! Oooh-wee-wee! Connected!

Yes, I know. Different.

Nevertheless, at this sector of our grid where we are exploring the authentic nature of true love, we are witnessing a new declaration: Love ALWAYS hopes!

M-hm. Love always hopes. Hopes? What is this? Some kind of pixie dust? Some wish upon a star? Is this some kind of 'tired-and-weary-granny-stranded-on-a-long-lonely-dusty-road-hoping-for-someone-to-drive-by-and-pick-her-up-kind-of-thing?' Hoping? Hmm? Guide me through this dust before it burns my eyes, did you say? Methinks I heard someone say I want to see more clearly the anticipated transformative attribute of humanity's most powerful force: Love always HOPES!

Being fully functional and wholly human!

Love ALWAYS hopes.

"Love is an active, accountable, responsible 'being' that makes decisions reflective of its authentic self."

Take love away and earth is a tomb. Yes, we are on a journey of exploration, exploring from as many angles as is shared and observed, this 'thing' called love. And that, for a worthy reason. Jesus!

As you may already know, or if you are new to our journey, we are not (presently) engaged in a theological discussion on any particular biblical passage or doctrine, nor necessarily presenting any quasi dissertation, even though, granted, all angles of discourse are welcome, even encouraged throughout this exploration. Our current deep interest is love in all of its immense wonder and fruitful practicality, as counselled by a particular assignment by Our Lord Jesus Christ, which we have boldly higlighted in the column to our left - Love - the which we are quite enthused about and pursue being in all of its fullness, as it beomes each of us to want to be.

We are discovering. We are revealing our discoveries. We are finding in them lots of ready-to-use stuff. We are applying some of this stuff. We are working through some of this stuff. We are learning from this stuff. We're excited about this stuff. Dip or dive in, as you please. Isn't life beautiful? We, too, have heart and mind and body and soul. We use them. All of them! We experience life - the real kind. M-hm.

What about you? What have you found? What are you finding?

Here we are discovering Love ALWAYS hopes! Or, as might just as well be said, "love hopes all things."

This is a distinctive characterisation taken from an instructive poetic passage (in a letter), which we are using as the grid for our exploration. That's it. What I am finding is awesome. Oooh-wee! Awesome!

Now, one does not have to transform one's mind in order to love or be loved (or, perhaps, such a transformation might make a tremendous difference - and wouldn't that be a personal discovery?)

What have you found?

One does not have to love and be loved in order to be transformed or to renew one's mind (then again, Ooooh, what testimonies! Have you heard?)

As we consider (i.e., sharing and being) how best we might comport ourselves in light of these exhortations, enjoying God's blessed abundance, we've brought to the fore the power of love, the power of the renewed mind in light of our understanding of Jesus, and by way of experienced transformation we are lifting each other out the mire and onto shoulders, rebuilding and re-recreating with joy and passion. And, well, ooooh-wee! You too are welcome along this journey if you've just stopped by.

Indeed, love hopes all things!

Hopes!

This is an action-word, isn't it? Hopes!

At every sector of our grid, we've gained increasing respect for the power of words. M-hm! This realization has debunked a few oppressive misconceptions.

At a few sectors back, we were exposed (barely) to the outer edge of a whirlwind, as it were: i.e., the potential in some words when whipped into a stir of destruction! Tag words. Trigger words. Words employed in a tyranny of abuse. Words ably stripped and made into whipping boys and whipping toys for a long game - let's cal it - SIT. These very words are far too often innocently reused by "good" folk with "good" intention, unaware of a vicious virus being spread by way of such "misbehaving" words, even though some of these very innocent folks may have a ready sense they are playing that very game, or perhaps a different game - let's call this one - "Ya ugly! God don't like ugly people." M-hm! My granny had a very special nom-de-plume for these games. Hahahahaaa. Oh, dear me!

M-hm. Well, that's a wee bit of what I've spooted away from here.

These words are not 'naturally' bad! In fact, they are excellent words, useful words, necessary words, transforming words, essential words. These are exactly the reasons they are attractive to abusers, oppressors, tyrants - the enemy! What they have so skillfully done is tainted, tagged and touted these unique words, having first stripped them into fine whips!

Yes. You've probably experienced the pain!

What words are these?

Oh, you betya; we are going to run smack into them very soon - if you are still on this awesome journey - and we ain't gonna shy away from confronting them head on. We're going to give them the MIRACLE treatment. We will be pulling golden rods out of those . . . snakes!

At a previous sector, we've also encountered a different phenomenon with our beautiful words - in fact, all words. Our word "hope" may be demostrative of this latter issue.

Words are attributed meanings for which they were designed, meanings intended to increase the effectiveness of communication between essential parties, or enhance communication overall.

Words are a relatively new innovation. Words did not exist at the beginning of time. Communication did. There are many mechanisms of communication; words used in combination are merely one aspect of relaying messages.

There are three unique aspects of this mentioned phenomenon. One is this. A word has its meaning(s) in relation to its culture, its context and its condition. Miss any aspect of its full make-up and you are more likely to miss its full meaning. (This occurs quite frequently. There are entire industries dedicated to exploiting this.)

Another is this. I call it the lizard effect. Some words are adaptive, like chameleons seeking attention rather than cammouflage; their meanings change as they move through different environments; they are colored, they are nuanced; they are conditioned by who is talking to whom; and oft times more admirably reflect or camouflage the word company they keep. These do not have fixed unchageable meanings. If you are an outsider, you are likely to missunderstand their full meaning. No foul intended. Or maybe! They can morph themselves into fraternity speak and sorority speak. Not intended for outsiders!

Yet another is this: words have a lifespan. Words evolve. Believe it or not! Some words have not maintained the same meaning they had when your grandmother used them. And definitely not when Shakespeare used them. Oh, yeah, dude! And they don't give a damn if you disagree with their evolution. They evolve regardless. They shed their teeth and grow newer ones. And some words die. They are dead, buried and gone. Not all with tombstones! And some words get resurrected with new clothes on, and their memories erased. And some words were born last week. Yes. Your grandchildren will more likely be using those words far more frequently. And some words will arrive and disappear in a flash. And some words, no one alive knows what they originally meant. M-hm. We guess at their meaning. Ooops! Not so clean-cut as one might have imagined. Is it? Ah! Now you get it! Now we understand why they thought Shakespeare was full of gibberish and them know Shakespeare is pure brilliance. (Nevermind, this is a friendly inside preppy love-spar with one of my dear fellow exploring buddies! He blogs about me too. Gotya back!)

However, this is what you and I are exploring in this episode: love always hopes.

Oh, boy, I hope the roads are not icy in the morning. Nope! That's not the kind of hope we are seeing here.

This is a joyful hope.

This is a confident hope.

This is a hope worth hoping.

That's the kind of hope this true love is always having!

It kinda makes a whole load of difference, doesn't it? A mighty humoungus lot, I say. This love 'thing' is huge. This is a difference-maker! It's gonna make for a whole bundle of worthwhile difference in the long scheme of things, I think. But let's see as we continue.

What are you seeing?

(Share!)

This is love, baby. Love.

"Knowledge that takes you not beyond yourself is far worse than ignorance." Elif Shafak.

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Something To Consider

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You are

What POWER!