If You Only Understood…
1 Corinthians 13:11-13 Amplified Bible (AMP)
11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; now that I have become a man, I am done with childish ways and have put them aside. 12For now we are looking in a mirror that gives only a dim (blurred) reflection [of reality as in a riddle or enigma], but then [when perfection comes] we shall see in reality and face to face! Now I know in part (imperfectly), but then I shall know and understand fully and clearly, even in the same manner as I have been fully and clearly known and understood [by God]. 13And so faith, hope, love abide [faith--conviction and belief respecting man's relation to God and divine things; hope--joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation; love--true affection for God and man, growing out of God's love for and in us], these three; but the greatest of these is love.
My daughter and I often talk about life and how we approach it, and see others around us approaching life. Many times our conversations are multigenerational because my mother is present and involved and this adds another element and layer to the discussion. Recently, we had a discussion about allowing people to treat us a certain way, or allowing people to use us up, or mistreat us. This conversation, lead to a discussion about how we think about ourselves, and how we view who we are. As the discussion progressed we came to a conclusion that often our willingness to take things, or to be mishandled and mistreated by others comes from a place of self-loathing and often a place of misunderstanding who we are and what we are created for. But deeper still, my mother’s comments wrapped it all up with a neat bow, when she said we often cannot see, because we have not submitted our lives to God and we do not understand the love that He has for us and why He even wants us here or why we were created. And we were all done at that point...She had brought it home.
I have a little cousin in Chicago she is a loud voice among her peers, we is constantly posting thought provoking items for a young lady still in her teens and attending High School. She talks about the lack of respect her generation seems to have for themselves by allowing them to be used physically and how they should value their bodies and the person God made them. She has tackled issues like dressing with all your stuff hanging out all over the place. She has talked about the fact that we need to have respect for one another as well as ourselves. This is a young lady that has touched base with God, and has allowed him to reveal some things to her that no man or human reasoning could have given her. There are so many of us as Adults that have not even given themselves to God in the simplest of ways in order for Him to instill some very important things in us such as His love and His desire for us. We have not gotten close enough to Him and allowed him to give us understanding about who we are to Him and who intends for us to be. Instead we allow ourselves to become peoples, beating post, sex toy, convenience, and in many cases an ends to a means. We lack the understanding that we are fearfully and wonderfully made and God predestined us, He knew us and called us by name. We don’t look to the cross and see it for what it was and still remains to be, a sacrifice of unfettered love towards us to gain us back into fellowship after sin separated us. We do not understand that God gave us our life as a gift and that the way in which we steward it and watch over all that He has given us to include our bodies is our gift back to Him.
If only we understood, the magnitude of Love God has for us. If only we could truly see what God desires for us and our lives. God sent us a love letter in His word that outlines all that He feels for us, all that He thinks about us, and most of all, all that He has paid and settled for us. If we only understood that God is the King and we are princes and princess we would stop allowing people to treat us like the trash, or that old shoe that the dog chewed up, or like the prostitute that strolls the corner, or worse, because as least they are getting paid many of us allow ourselves to be taken in that way and we are walking away misused and abused with nothing but cuts and bruises and another blow to our self-esteem and our self-image. When we look in the mirror we should not see someone that has to expose themselves to be noticed, or feel good about themselves or to give away precious elements of which we are to get attention; nor should we feel we have to buy our way into friendship, or companionship. We should see the beautiful/handsome anointed instrument of God that He created for a purpose and a destiny that is too important to allow people to speak into, abide in, play in mess over or take from our lives that do not qualify to do so because they are not ordained to do so. Ask God to show you who He made you to be and read His word and spend time with Him in order for you to understand what it is that He has for you, what He wants from you and what He has already done for you!
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