BLESSED NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE OF YOU PEEPS!! :D
May 2010 be such an abundant and prosperous year, overflowing with the LOVE & GRACE of Jesus:)

On this new year, I thought it would be good to reaffirm my convictions again, with these verses in mind.

Was reading Max Lucado's "Cast of Characters", this morning, and It was such a timely devotion.

The 7:47 Principle

Luke 7:36-47

36 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat.[a] 37 When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. 38 Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.

39 When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She’s a sinner!”

40 Then Jesus answered his thoughts. “Simon,” he said to the Pharisee, “I have something to say to you.”

“Go ahead, Teacher,” Simon replied.

41 Then Jesus told him this story: “A man loaned money to two people—500 pieces of silver[b] to one and 50 pieces to the other. 42 But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, canceling their debts. Who do you suppose loved him more after that?”

43 Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt.”

“That’s right,” Jesus said. 44 Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Look at this woman kneeling here. When I entered your home, you didn’t offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume.

47 “I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.”


Many times we strive to do better and work harder at our relationships, trying to save our troubled lives by ourselves. But could it be that the first step of love is not toward them, but toward him?

Could it be that the secret to loving, is receiving?
You give love, by first receiving it-- "We love because he first loved us".

This year 2010, I want to be more loving, but it begins not with myself trying harder to love, or to be more patient with others, like what Luke 7:47 says, it begins with us receiving.

We all need a transfusion of God's love into our hearts, and if we only tell others to love without telling them to receive God's love, it is like telling them to write a cheque without making any deposit into their accounts.

No wonder so many people have insufficient love.

The secret to loving, is LIVING LOVED.
Go back and remember, how much you have been forgiven, how much God has been patient with you, how much God has put you first. Then will you find the strength to love others in a similar way.

I want to be thirsty for Your love, because without You, Lord, I am nothing.

So, Jesus, I welcome you into my 2010, into my life, my thoughts, my actions, my plans. Into my heart.

I ask that This year will not just be another successsful year, but also a year filled with Your love to overflowing, lives changed, destinies fulfilled. :D

So before ending this post, I would like to leave you with this:

1 Cor 13
Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind. Jesus does not envy, He does not boast, Jesus is not proud. Jesus is not rude, He is not self-seeking, He is not easily angered, He keeps no record of wrongs. Jesus does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Jesus always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Jesus never fails.

Amen.

lots of love, lil' miss geek :).