DO YOU HAVE A CONNECTION AND COMMITMENT TO THE HOLY SPIRIT? IF NOT THIS BLOG WILL HELP YOU LIVE IN, FOR, BY AND WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT SO YOU CAN HAVE A VITAL LINK TO JESUS CHRIST.
Lord, maybe I got it all wrong I have to wonder if our love and our relationship is really as truly intimate as I think it is. It is not that I do not trust you, it is me I do not trust. I ask myself, am I capable of giving the creator all the love he deserves? Could I possibly generate an unselfish love that is worthy of the King of the universe? The love I feel for you is not enough, I know. But when I try going deeper, the ways of the world make me stumble in my dedication to you. Please, Lord, show me how to love you with divine love. Show me how to take the heavenly love you give and let me give it back to you and your people. With my love, I cannot love purely, but with yours, I can put forth a selfless love into the world giving you all the glory.
Dr. Don’s Reflections
The question I always find myself asking God is to show me how I can love him more. I always have the sense that I do not love him enough. There is just something in me and it is not the Catechism but an innate feeling that God deserves all the love I can give him. But I simply cannot give him enough.
For me, I realized early in my walk with Christ that in serving God I must love him, first. In other words, the need to be of service to God in his people does not come out of a sense of duty but rather out of the depth of love for him. I cannot earn my way into the love of God. I cannot work my way into heaven. No matter how many works you do in the service of the Lord, if you do it without love, it matters not.
My love of God comes from realizing how much he loves me and how unconditional that love really is. Putting God’s love to the test as many times as I have through sin and doubt made me realize that his love does not quit. How do you answer a love that does not quit? Only in two ways, walk away from it or respond in kind. I never could walk away from him who called me out to himself. So I have a love for God that will not quit.
So what is the first thing you want to do when you love somebody, well, you want to find out more about that person? And so it was with God, I wanted to find out more about God the Father and his son Jesus. In realizing this Jesus gave me the Holy Spirit as a private tutor to teach me about the trinity, three Gods in one and the more I found out about each one the greater my love would grow. You cannot love a God you do not know
In asking God to purify my love the Holy Spirit revealed a truth to me. Loving with my love will never be pure enough because it is human love, it is conditional. To love purely you must love God and everything else with the love of Jesus. So my prayer is “Dear Holy Spirit, give me the Love of Jesus so that I may love my God and his people with the love of Jesus. After years of trying to love “purely” with my love, I realized it was not possible. I had to love God and his people with the love of Jesus which means the less of me there is the more of Jesus there will be. Being able to love with the love of Jesus Christ means I must die to myself for it is in true selflessness that the love of Jesus exists.
Dr. Don’s Comments
It may sound strange to you that in the process of your walk with Jesus, he gives you his love to love him and his people back. It is hard to believe that the love you have is replaced with the love of Jesus the closer and more intimate you get with him.
The Christian way is to become like Jesus and in doing that it means you love like Jesus. His love is such a sweet love and once you get to know that you are willing to surrender your human love so you can love divinely.
Stop for a minute and think about what I am telling you and I will say it again in a different way. The closer you get to Jesus the more you become like Jesus and less like you. It is called, “dying to self”.
You come to understand that self is no longer the reason for existence.
If you are like me you do not realize it initially but the more you pursue the more you realize that you are pursuing an eternal love that you can only get through and in Jesus. You cannot get this love with a visit to the church each Sunday, No, each day, every day you seek Jesus out through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Knowing and loving Jesus is serious stuff. Jesus wants you to be passionate about knowing and loving him. He will have it no other way. You are wasting your time if you think you will develop a real relationship with Jesus just by attending church on Sunday. As it reads in Revelations 3:16….
“Because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I will spit you out of my mouth.” You must not only “talk the talk” but you must “walk the walk” That is the only way Jesus will have it. So get serious or don’t waste your time.
