One of my favourite things to do is to spend time with Jesus and just love Him.
If I was to describe this it would be that it is sharing loving warmth from my heart. It’s an opportunity to express how I love Him and am devoted to Him, and I feel we bond and my relationship with Him is strengthened. I feel it helps me align myself and focus on Him, giving more of myself to Him in devotion, which sets me up to sacrifice for Him in other ways later, because I attune myself to Him.
Sometimes, I go to do this, expecting to grow closer and enjoy the presence of my amazing perfect Saviour, perfectly loving, pure, and kind, but then it is like He swaps Himself out for someone else, someone else in the body of Christ whom He wants me to love.
Sometimes I pray for others and feel connected to them in the spirit, and I have written about this as well. But it is interesting when it is Jesus’ idea to love others, not mine.
Then I am confronted with a test. There is now an imperfect stranger in front of me in the spirit — someone who is not nearly as enjoyable as the perfectly loving Jesus. Sometimes, I am filled with God’s love and it is easy to love whoever He puts in my path, (in the spirit or face to face,) but other times it is someone I had come to assume that I can’t love or connect with for whatever reason, or who was undesirable for some reason.
Sometimes it is a bit of a struggle, and I have to die to old empty comforts of avoiding people I think are weird, boring, hurtful, or there is just a sense of hopelessness that we will have anything in common.
It is always worth it to set those things aside though, and love! Love never fails (1 Cor 13:8), God is love (1 John 4:8), and whoever abides in love abides in God (1 John 4:16).
“Do You Love Me?” Jesus’ Right
“…Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.” – Eph 5:23b-24
“Do you love me…? … Tend My lambs.” – John 21:15
“And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ …. Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” – Matthew 25:40,45b
If we truly love Jesus, and Jesus loves His people, His lambs, His body, how can we not also love those He loves?
Unexpected Redirections
I am used to having Jesus redirect my attention to someone else when spending time with Him, and I am also used to being challenged to love the people that are harder to love. A couple redirections surprised me, during worship times at church. It felt as though my conscious mind was attuned to God and directing the musical lyrics to Him, but God took my willing spirit and received my offering by delivering that love to someone else. It was as though my spirit felt connected by God to someone God wanted to love, but my brain stayed innocent and ignorant of it, even though my spirit knew it (and my spirit later filled in my brain.) I also once felt the reverse during worship, someone else’s spirit connected to me by God, except I’m not sure the other person’s spirit was aware. It only lasted for a few moments, but I felt blessed — not only would God love me Himself, but I knew it was a promise that He would use others to love me as well. Both of these experiences during worship were quite a surprise, because in hundreds of hours of worship in church services, while my mind may wander at times and not fully be devoted to God, and while evil spirits may try to distract, and I have felt connected to God when things are going well, I’ve never felt that God Himself chose to redirect my or another’s spirit. But it makes sense to me that it is His prerogative to receive our gift of love and “spend” it any way He pleases.
Discussion
How about you? Have you ever felt connected to God but then Jesus reroutes your love to someone He wants to receive love?
