Ingredients of The GOOD Life
Why is it that so many people that have everything they ever wanted are so miserable? The big houses, boats, trips, fancy gadgets, all the amenities of the comfortable American luxury lifestyles and yet so many suicides, addictions, relational disasters? What is up with that picture being so "bipolar"?
Started me thinking. Every American holiday seems to have LOVE at the core: Love of people, country or GOD. So with all this celebration of Love why is it so few of us really live LOVE consistently? My premise is that if we really FELT LOVED and LIVED LOVING WELL we truly would be happy and have the main ingredient and start to the GOOD LIFE!
A Theory as to what makes a HAPPY AND ABUNDANT LIFE: (INGREDIENTS):
FULLY KNOWN and FULLY, UNCONDITIONALLY LOVED
FORGIVEN, ACCEPTED AND FEEL BELONGING WITH ONE OR MORE OTHERS THAT TRULY KNOW YOU AND LOVE YOU AS YOU ARE AND BELIEVE IN YOU EVEN AT YOUR WORST
DEAL WITH AND OVERCOME CHILDHOOD TRAUMAS, WOUNDINGS, CORE / ROOT LIES, ABUSES, PAIN and your own responses that often were unfavorable, hateful, mistakes or sinful
RECEIVE FORGIVENESS to a deeper level as you acknowledge parts/memories needing forgiveness!
Then FORGIVE OTHERS as YOU HAVE BEEN so GRACIOUSLY FORGIVEN BY GOD WHEN YOU ASKED
REFUSE TO LIVE AS A VICTIM OR BLAME OTHERS,
TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR PART BY REPENTANCE & humility
TRUST RE-BUILT when needed with those closest to you
My thought: MOTHER’S LOVE TEND TO PROVIDE MORE OF THESE above INGREDIENTS THAN ANY OTHER human RELATIONSHIP TYPICALLY Often Fathers are absent, unknown, or abusive & this can affect us greatly.
IF we would just believe GOD loved us despite others failures to love us like we need and want, we would receive the Greatest relationship and treasure on earth: True Love!
We just celebrated Valentine’s Day. Soon Mothers Day and Fathers Day…
Again I restate: USA HOLIDAYS core element: FULL OF LOVE and Thus JOY:
LOVE is a CORE ELEMENT IN EVERY HOLIDAY! Love of people, country, GOD...do you agree?
Is there anyone in your life that knows you and loves you unconditionally?
Have you ever asked for forgiveness from God or others?
Do you live feeling rejected, unwanted, unaccepted, uninvited, unloved by most?
Has anyone loved you at your worst?
Is there any childhood memory that haunts you? torments you? is kept in secret by you? Does anyone else know what you have been through in your life? What your story is?
What major abuses or pain have you lived? Have you ever written our your life story? If so what did you learn about yourself and others? Do you want to be well? Do you want to be the best you can be?
Story of OUTCAST woman in John 4
Story of invalid, impotent man of 38 years: John 5. JESUS KNEW BOTH AND LOVED AND HEALED THEM!
(Copied below from website):
Mother's Day/Father's Day Card-giveaway to prisoners
A few years ago, a greeting card company offered free cards to inmates from a prison to send to mothers on Mother's Day. Nearly all the prisoners took the offer and sent cards to their mothers. So the greeting card company was somewhat encouraged by the success and they decided that they would then make the same offer when Father's Day came around. They offered free cards to send to fathers on Father's Day, and they had zero takers. There was no one in that prison who wanted to send a card to his father on Father's Day.
Guest: I can give you a slightly relevant anecdote. When I worked for the phone company many, many years ago, Mother's Day was the busiest calling day of the year. Busier than Christmas. Father's Day was like any other day.
Guest: Elder sources the story to a book called My Father's Face by James Robison. My local library and bookstore don't have this book, so I'm unable to trace the story further. ….
My Fathers Face: Entrusting Our Lives to a God Who Loves Us by James Robison Each one of us deeply longs for the love of a father. Yet countless men and women grow into adulthood with a vague, negative, or even non-existent image of what a dad is like… ________________________________________
He-motions: Even Strong Men Struggle
By T. D. Jakes page 131: However, I'm convinced that the only way we can really avoid playing the blame game is to see our fathers as men — fallible and flawed like all of us — and to ... the time when inmates send the most cards — virtually every incarcerated man who has a mother living wants to send her a note, a card, a reminder that no matter. _______________________end of copy.
My edit: Is it hard to imagine what it means to be loved unconditionally? We may have experienced passionate love, young love, first loves but do they last in the hard times? Do these have the ability to sustain love? Most people feel there comes a time when LOVE begins to feel difficult. To receive or give love is a choice. Will you make that choice?
These quotes struck me from : http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christiancrier/2015/07/25/top-7-bible-verses-about-unconditional-love/
“The rush wears off, the facades come down, and daily life begins to wear down the sparkle. The ones who make it, are those who choose to hold on to that first kind of love, in all moments-even when the ones we are called to love seem entirely unlovable. To some small degree, that is the way God loves us. He holds on tightly to us, even when the going gets tough, and loves us at our very best and our lowest worst. His is a love with no earthly match, but an example of the way we should aspire to be. … Unconditional Love is Powerful: When we love unconditionally, and when we receive unconditional love, we find that there is power in those feelings and actions. We find hope. We find courage. Things we never knew to expect come from giving to one another of one another without any expectations. Sometimes Unconditional Love is Hard: When we love unconditionally, it means that we even have to love people in tough times. This means loving someone when they’re being rude or inconsiderate. It also means loving our enemies. This means unconditional love takes work.” end quote.
Please read on for TRUTHS of the unwavering, committed love of our Lord and believe that GOD’s LOVE always will be meant for you.
Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Ps 36
Psalm 36:5-7 New Living Translation (NLT)
Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens;
your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds.
Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,
your justice like the ocean depths.
You care for people and animals alike, O Lord.
How precious is your unfailing love, O God!
All humanity finds shelter
in the shadow of your wings.
Jeremiah 31:3 The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.
Psalm 136:2 Give thanks to the God of gods. His love endures forever.
Ephesians 3:17-19 The Message (MSG)
My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
Exodus 34:6 English Standard Version (ESV)
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
God is Graciously purposeful and relational in demonstrating unconditional love. He loves without expectation and Jesus’ life models unfailing, sacrificial, pure, costly love.
Romans 5:8
But God showed how much he loved us by having Christ die for us, even though we were sinful. (CEV)
1 John 4:8
But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. (NLT)
1 John 4:16
We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. (NLT)
John 3:16-17
For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.(NLT)
Ephesians 2:8
You were saved by faith in God, who treats us much better than we deserve.[a] This is God’s gift to you, and not anything you have done on your own. (CEV)
Jeremiah 31:3
The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.” (NKJV)
Titus 3:4-5
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. (ESV)
Philippians 2:1 Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ?
Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? (NLT)
1 Peter4:8 And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins.” (NKJV)
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (NIV)
1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. (NIV)
1 John 3:16
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. (NIV)
Ephesians 3:15-19
From whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. (NASB)
2 Timothy 1:7 NASB
For God has not given us a spirit of [a]timidity, but of power and love and discipline.
Matthew 5:43-48
You have heard people say, “Love your neighbors and hate your enemies.” But I tell you to love your enemies and pray for anyone who mistreats you. Then you will be acting like your Father in heaven. He makes the sun rise on both good and bad people. And he sends rain for the ones who do right and for the ones who do wrong. If you love only those people who love you, will God reward you for that? Even tax collectors love their friends. If you greet only your friends, what’s so great about that? Don’t even unbelievers do that? But you must always act like your Father in heaven. (CEV)
Luke 6:27 But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. (NLT)
Romans 12:9-10
Be sincere in your love for others. Hate everything that is evil and hold tight to everything that is good. Love each other as brothers and sisters and honor others more than you do yourself. (CEV)
1 Timothy 1:5 (CEV)
You must teach people to have genuine love, as well as a good conscience and true faith.
1 Corinthians 13:1
If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. (NLT)
Romans 3:23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. (NLT)
Mark 12:30-31
And 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.’
The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these. (NIV)