Growing in loving God and others

Growing  in loving God and others
January 2018
Copyright
Kathleen Maxwell-Rambie

     

Our son Barrett and his new wife Aimee

One of the outstanding characteristics of God, is his constant, everlasting love for us. When someone says the word God to me, two words frequently pop into my mind,  His faithfulness and love. No matter what is going on in my life, His faithfulness and love are  my anchor and security. How about you? What pops into your head when you hear the word God? 

Opening our hearts and our minds to God’s love will bring many benefits into our lives and those we are around. With Valentines Day around the corner, we focus on love, I think it would be good for us to spend some extra time loving God and practicing loving others.

     I have seen in my own life that the more I open my heart to God’s love for me and spend time loving Him, the better I am at loving others. We are all born with a need to be loved and we are born being selfish and self centered. Love thinks of others first. I’ve been asking God to reveal to me when I am self centered or selfish as I want to love others better.

     Love is a connection of hearts. Real love is based on relationship.When we love God with our hearts, instead of our mind, we are able to love others with God’s love. Actually, when we love those we are around well, it shows our love for God. 1 John 4:7 state,”Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” (NIV)

Fun West Texas adventures with my husband 

      All of us can improve in loving God and loving others. When I think of those in my life that have loved me well, they are people that love God, are sensitive, compassionate and are not self centered. They are the people that believe the best in me and stand by me no matter what. They are people that demonstrate their love for God by how they love me and others in their lives. 

Humble people and those not afraid to admit when they are wrong, are usually good at loving others. People that love in their actions, not just in words.Think of the people in your life that you feel love you well. What are their characteristics? Do they say they love God or demonstrate that they love God by loving others. Loving others well is proof of our love for God.

     Believing God loves us takes faith. Faith and love are linked together. Fifty five times in the Bible, the words faith and love are mentioned in the same scripture. We cannot really believe in God’s faithfulness until we really believe God loves us. I can totally trust in God’s faithfulness to me because I’ve learned of His love for me. 

Grant-my newest grandson!

I will never forget the day I admitted to some friends and my late husband, that I believed God loved other people, but wasn’t convinced that He really loved me.  Let me confess, I had been a believer for 20 years.  That confession was the beginning of a great journey of discovering God’s incredible love for me. That love has become the bedrock of security and trust in God. It took a lot of courage to admit what I felt, as my late husband and I were leading a Bible study; but it was a gut level confession and God heard it and honored it. 

Do you need to get gut level honest with God? I had been taught since I was a child that God loved me, and believed it in my head, but not my heart. It was not until I was honest with others and God as a thirty year old woman, that I really began to understand God’s love for me. Let me encourage you to be honest with God. He already knows your heart anyway.

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   Galatians 2:20 says,“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (NIV) 

We see in this scripture that our faith in God is directly linked to knowing His love for us. Let me encourage you, if you lack faith in God, you need to discover His love for you. Personally, I want to be known as a woman that loved God with all her heart and loves others well. Unfortunately, I know people that say they love God but do not love the poor and needy and others well.

      I personally believe, we can all grow in loving  God, understanding His love and loving others. Ask God to teach you more of His love for you and it will help you in loving others. Scripture tells us 1 John 4:12, “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” (NIV)

My oldest son-LCDR Austin Maxwell

 1 John 4:16 states, “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”

     Love and forgiveness go hand in hand. I will admit, there have been times in my life I have had to ask God to give me His love for others because of hurt or injustice I have felt. It is easy to judge others when we have not walked in their shoes and often times, that judgment wounds those around us. In those times, we are on shaky ground.

 There are times when I have to say, “I choose as an act of my will to forgive ____.  There are times I have to preach to myself and say, “Kathleen, you got to love them.” If God loves me and forgives me, I have to love and forgive others.

 No matter what I feel, I want to love others as He does. I have no problem in asking Him for help in loving difficult people. I need His help and am not afraid to admit it. It is better than not loving them.

     1 John 4:20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.(NIV) 

We cannot hate others and  have unforgiveness towards them and love God. That is a tough statement but don’t shoot me...I didn’t write the book.

    Bottom line, God loves us in our worst state; therefore, we need to loves others in theirs. February  is only a few days away and is a month when we concentrate on love. Let’s look at God’s love for us and get to know Him better. Open your heart to Him, ask Him to teach you about His love and ask Him to help you love others. 

And remember, love never fails, so it is a sound investment. Will you join me in focusing on telling God daily you love him and practicing loving others?

Kathleen Maxwell is a native of the Hill Country, educator, writer and speaker. She is passionate about helping others discover the joy of walking with God and their value. You can contact her at kathleenmaxwell1@gmail.com and on her blog www.themaxwellminutes.blogspot.com

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Widows and widowers are special to the heart of God

Widows and widowers are special to the heart of God

January 2018

copyright

     

Recently I received a phone call from a woman whose world was suddenly turned upside down.

 “Kathleen, this is Susie,” she stated. “I need your help.” she continued.

 “Susie, is everything okay?” I asked. “No, Bill is dead. He was traveling and I received a phone call that he collapsed and he is gone,” she said in a state of shock. 

“No!” I responded with a loud voice. I did not want anyone to experience the pain I had experienced as a widow. 

Since that day when my friend called for help, I have had numerous other acquaintances  that have lost their mate.  I hate it for all of  them and my heart is tender towards them.

None of us have any guarantees in life. Bad things  happen to good people and it is in our broken places, that God’s love, grace and hope peeks in to see us through the pain of life. In the mean time, we all have our place in history.

 For some of us, it is to push through with all we have in us to live life again. For others, we have a mandate that are the basics of Christianity to help those that are in distress or hurting.

 If you have lost a mate and are a widow or widower, take heart. There are some wonderful promises in scripture. If you have not, you have a wonderful opportunity to practice the basics of Christianity, “look after the fatherless and the widow in their distress.” James 1:27 (NIV)

Widows and widowers are dear to the heart of God. It is easy to feel alone, lonely, and wonder where you fit, now that you are no longer married. All these feelings are natural as part of you, is now gone. Scripture says that when we marry, we become one; therefore, when a mate leaves this earth, part of you is missing. The unwanted  journey of discovering who you are now without your mate, your place in society as a single person, begins.

In my own three year journey as a widow, several scriptures became very special in that season. 

Psalms 68:5 proclaims God’s character and says, “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing.” (NIV) The basic nature of God is compassion for those that find themselves in ashes.  

God’s heart is tender for those that are fatherless, and for many children, they are fatherless for a variety of reasons; abandonment, prison, addiction, just to name a few. God will defend the widow and be a daddy to the fatherless and He cares for those that are lonely. 

I have personally seen how God has defended me in situations when I did not  have a husband to protect me and look out for my best interest. Knowing I had a special place in the heart of God gave great comfort.

 Another passage that is a favorite of mine is Psalms 146:9, which says, “The Lord watches over the alien, and sustains the fatherless and widow...” (NIV)

 When I first read this passage, I looked up the word sustain to find out it’s meaning. Sustain means to prolong, keep up, strengthen or support physically or mentally. There were times I did not think I could make it, having the responsibility of everything all alone after 30 years of sharing everything with a partner. It was not that I could not do tasks that my husband did, for me it was balancing everything alone from work, single parenting, finances, caring for my elderly parents, the house, the yard and the trash, etc. I just wanted the trash fairy would drop by my house and take the trash out! Sometimes, a kind neighbor will bring my trash cans back to my house and those acts of kindness showed me God’s provision and how He sustained me. 

Isaiah 1:17 is another promise and reflection of the heart of God. It states, “Seek justice, encourage the  oppressed, Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.” (NIV) Again we see what God has to say about what is important to Him. If it is important to God, it should be important to me.

 If you are widowed, you can hang on to how special you are to the heart of God. There were many times I have prayed and asked God to send someone to plead my case and help me. 

I had a situation when my dryer broke and was having to go through a lot of red tape to get it fixed, as it was under warranty. I asked God for help and  the assistant to the president of the company, over saw my case and came to my defense after weeks of waiting. Ask God to raise up those that will defend you.

 Being a retirement community, there are plenty that need us to fight for, defend and plead their case. How about you? Do you encourage those that are oppressed by sin, discouraged by circumstances, do what is right in business, help the child whose dad is in prison or parent has abandoned them thru divorce or death? Do you help the widow in your neighborhood or church? Have you even asked what you might do to help in some way? 

Exodus 22:22 is  another reflection of God’s heart. It proclaims, “Do not take advantage of a widow or orphan. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused and I will kill you.” (NIV) It is a good thing we live by grace and not law anymore! This scripture shows us that God hears the cry of the orphan and the widow. His heart is  particularly soft towards them and is a just God. He does not tolerate treating them unjustly. 

James 1:27 gets right to the point about what is important in our Christian walk. It says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and  faultless is this; to look after the orphans and widows in their distress...” (NIV) It is just that simple. 

Sometimes in our busy world, we forget to to the basics of life. We can get caught up in all our ministry goals, busy lives, bible studies, committees etc. and forget what God says is pure and what is right. 

Do you need to help in your church or neighborhood? Is there a foster child, a child without a mom or dad, a widow or widower that needs you to include him or her in your lunch or holiday plans? It is something to think about. Looking after these that are right outside our back door is important.

Jesus said,  “I have come that you may have life and life to the full.”  If you are a widow or widower, you have a God given right to live life to the full again. Starting over isn’t easy but God is right there, to help and guide. 

My late husband has been gone eight years now and I remarried five years ago. I have a full and fun life but will never forget the kindness of God and people during my three hard years of being a widow. I am forever grateful for all I learned in that season of my life.

    

We are very blessed to have plenty of opportunities to practice the heart of God to the orphans and widows that are down the street, around the corner, in places of business and church.  Look around and let’s  get busy in the mission field God has placed before us. Will you join me?

Kathleen Maxwell-Rambie will be speaking Tuesday, January 23rd from 6:00-7:30 p.m. at the Dietert Center on “Thriving through seasons of grief”  You can register for the class by calling 830.792.4044 or at www.clubed.net

Kathleen is a native of the Hill Country. She is passionate about helping others discover the joy of walking with God and their value. You can contact her at kathleenmaxwell1@gmail.com and on her blog www.themaxwellminutes.blogspot.com