JOHN 21:15-17
WHEN THEY HAD FINISHED EATING. JESUS SAID TO SIMON PETER, SIMON SON OF JOHN, DO YOU LOVE ME MORE THAN THESE??? “YES, LORD,” HE SAID, “YOU KNOW THAT I LOVE YOU.” JESUS SAID, FEED MY LAMBS.” AGAIN JESUS SAID, “SIMON SON OF JOHN, DO YOU LOVE ME?” HE ANSWERED, YES, LORD, YOU KNOW THAT I LOVE YOU.” JESUS SAID, “TAKE CARE OF MY SHEEP.” THE THIRD TIME HE SAID TO HIM, SIMON SON OF JOHN, DO YOU LOVE ME?” PETER WAS HURT BECAUSE JESUS ASKED HIM THE THIRD TIME, “DO YOU LOVE ME?” HE SAID, LORD YOU KNOW ALL THINGS; YOU KNOW THAT I LOVE YOU.” JESUS SAID, “FEED MY SHEEP
Hi all I am back…. Lol I know it’s a world record, see how much time I have on my hands now that I don’t have a book to write, I can go back to focusing on all of you wonderful people 🤪 why am I back so soon you might be asking
Well if you watched the Vlog, which is featured above ☝️☝️☝️than you will already kind of know why I am here. I am back because the other day in my, online “group” (Bible study kind of thing) the pastor was teaching about love, not just any love but “agape” love. For those who do not know, agape love is a term used in the world of Christianity to describe the truest form of love that you can have, or be.
The reason why I say: have or be, Is because it works both ways. We not only receive that kind of love daily from Christ Jesus but as a believer in Christ we are also supposed to show and give that type of love back out into the world, not just give it out to Christ, but to the world.
Which is why I opted to use the scripture (john 21:15-17) above as my featured scripture in this blog/vlog, because in that scripture that’s exactly what Jesus is trying to get across to Simon, he’s basically saying to him, listen buddy you can be as “Christian” as you want, you can speak about how much you love me, as much as you want, but if you are not living it out than it means nothing to me.
That’s part of what I was trying to get across in my Vlog. Love on its own isn’t enough, just talking about it, just even giving our time to churches, raising our hands or even praying with people is not enough.
We need to be love and being love is going out in your community and feeding those who cannot afford food, judging them on their life choices, but just being a helping hand when they need it.
Now there’s a flip side to that too, because I am not telling you to be naive and let people take advantage of you, or to give out of your own means, I am not saying to do any of that. The Lord teaches us to have wisdom in all things but at the same time don’t let that become your excuse to not help people too.
Because I know plenty of people who claim they cannot give a helping hand, but yet I know for a fact they can. I also know people who have been in need of help but than when they go to receive it, they blow it because they take advantage of the person helping them. So that’s what I mean by there’s a flip side to it and you just have to use wisdom and really have to be in tune with the Lord, not go by “feelings” but go by the word of God and if you feel like you don’t fully understand the word of God or feel confused by it, that’s ok. That’s what the church is for, let your church, your pastor, your mentors in Christ, let them all help guide you through and once you start growing in him (Jesus) you will learn which advice is good authentic advice and which advice just doesn’t sit well with you, because you will get that type of advice even from your church and mentors, but once you start to grow you will realize what works and what doesn’t work for you. Also if a pastor or mentor does ever give you advice that maybe doesn’t sit well with you, it’s ok no need to get an attitude with them, it doesn’t mean they aren’t hearing from Christ, or that they aren’t living “right”, it just means they are human too and they are growing in their walks just as much as you are, so please let’s stop putting church people on a pedestal and let them live their lives…
Like I said in my video some times love isn’t enough, at least not in the way we desire it to be. Some of us expect love “agape” love to be like a pill . We just take it once or twice a day and magically it’s just going to melt our troubles away, melt our trauma away. Sadly that’s a false teaching if you ask me, because even “agape” love is not going to “cure” us, at least not in the way that some of us are led to believe.
Someone like myself who deals with 2 terminal and yes I said terminal diseases. “Agape” love is not going to melt away the diseases, because I have the love of Christ I am not going to wake up one day and magically have straight bones and be 6 feet tall LOL, it just won’t happen, even with “agape” love.
Don’t get me wrong I am not saying healings aren’t real or that I don’t believe in them, I totally believe in them, just read my book and you will see there’s several stories in that book where I share the Lord did miracles and even “healed” me. But the reality is those miracles are once in a blue moon, and I think the reason why they are is because a lot of times he (Jesus) wants us to walk out those trials and hardships because he wants us to grow and evolve and learn how to go through hardships.
I know what you are thinking, but Jackie JESUS DOESN’T WANT US IN PAIN OR WANT US TO STRUGGLE! And if you are saying those things you’d be right, but he also doesn’t want us to be spoiled brats who just magically have everything handed to us. Could we really be happy and fulfilled if we lived like that? Nothing would be special, we would not appreciate anything we have. We wouldn’t have an understanding of pain, hope, kindness, generosity, heartache and so many more emotions or characteristics that exist that I can’t even think of at the moment, but we wouldn’t achieve any of those things without our hardships, so yes I don’t believe the Lord wants us to go through some of these trials or hardships but I do believe he allows them to happen for a reason, for a purpose. It is not our job to ask the why, where, when or how, it is just our job to walk it out and trust that he is holding us.
That’s agape love. Agape love isn’t to magically expect our traumas or hardships to go away, it’s to expect that when we go through them he is going to hold us and guide us. Even in the darkest of valleys we have to know that we know, that we know he is going to lead us to the light!
When you go to certain therapy or even character building sessions or conference type events that are centered around building a good relationship with your spouse or even siblings or even good friends or even a coworker. What is one of the activities they will do with you to try to get you to understand a form of trust and unconditional love, or as us Christian’s call it “agape” love, does anyone know? It’s a trust fall, they will have your spouse or loved one stand behind you and they will tell you to fall backwards and by doing that they’re hoping that not only will your loved one catch you but that also they are strong enough to hold you up. That’s real love, that’s agape Christ centered love. It’s not that he’s going to magically come in and erase your problems, which he still might, but the point isn’t to expect that, or even have that be a part of our thought process. Our point to have that type of true authentic love is so that when we fall he’s there to catch us, or when the storm comes you have him to hide under. And when these trials come you automatically know he’s there, you don’t have to even ask because your so connected to his heart that you can automatically feel and sense his presence.
Me for example, when a storm like that comes I just sit back and sayLord this terrifies me but I know with you I’m covered, I know this is going to be a long walk, it might even feel like hell on earth, but I also know that because I have you holding me, I will be ok, I will get through this, I know you will get me through this.
There are so many people in this world especially Christians who go through these hardships and get so discouraged and disappointed when the Lord doesn’t instantly fix their problems. I’ve known people who battle sicknesses who will sit there praying for years for healings and nothing happens and they get so discouraged that they give up. They give up on life and they give up on Christ and they totally miss the point that Christ never guaranteed any of us a healing in any way, physically, mentally, emotionally. None of it was guaranteed, but what he did guarantee was that he’d be there to walk us through it and because he’s there walking us through it, that’s what makes us okay.
In john 21: 22-23 it basically shows us how people hear what they want to hear and see what they want to see and how terribly we can miss interpret the most basic of things and make things into these elaborate stories.
John 21:22-23 22 Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” 23 Because of this, the rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?”
I’m bringing this to your attention because this is exactly how we interpret the love of Christ at times, some times we make into things that it just isn’t.
When we are going through those darkest of valleys we can praise Jesus, we can pray to him, we can give all our money to the poor and we can do all these other amazing things that we have convinced ourselves that if we do all these things and if we are the perfect little Christian than that will be our ticket to freedom, that will be our ticket out of the darkness. The reality is 99.9% of the time that isn’t true, you can do everything right but if you’re expecting your freedom to come from all this than you are not only missing the point of all this but also you’re going to be greatly disappointed.
Because, again I’ll say, some times it isn’t about being set free, some times it is about growing your faith and strengthening your relationship with Christ. Some times his priority is to make sure you grow in your walk with him and some times in order to grow you have to go through some stuff.
Again I will say think of a natural father, or even any parent in general, sone times they will make us (their kids) do things to help us grow. For example for years when we are tiny little babies and toddlers and even kids our parents will clean up after us, we can drop our toys wherever we want, food wherever we want and so much more, but than eventually what happens? There comes a point in time where our parents stop picking up our messes and start teaching us to clean them up for ourselves. Why? Because they want to see us grow, they want to see us evolve so that one day we can stand on our own two feet and take care of ourselves. That’s “agape” love, that’s real love.
Not this magical Carpet ride, genie in a bottle, Charlie and the chocolate factory, la la land world kind of thing we got going on in our heads when we think of Christ and Christ’s love.
His love and the relationship that you can build with him, is so much better than this magic carpet ride, riding on unicorns kind of thing were trying to sell to people nowadays. I am sorry I am not trying to disrespect anyone’s beliefs or teachings but I think it’s just crazy how messed up we have allowed ourselves to interpret certain things that our in the word (the Bible)
I know this blog/vlog is a bit long and I apologize for that, I just really felt the Lord forcing me to share my heart with you all especially about this particular topic. I pray you all understand what I’m saying and most importantly I pray I was able to convey what I know the Lord was guiding me to say and most importantly I hope you all are blessed by it and that you learn some thing from it.
We are so focused on feeling “good” when we leave church nowadays that we forget. The motive or purpose of church wasn’t just to help us feel good, it was to educate us, to strengthen our walk and relationship with Christ and we do that through educating one another. It’s not always about getting a “word” (prophecy) or getting someone to lay hands on us, or be slain in the “spirit”. Don’t get me wrong I am not saying there isn’t a time or place for that of course there is, those things are important too, but I think we have started to become addicted to those things like a person becomes addicted to drugs or alcohol. We are so focused on these things that we than forget the real focus should be growing in Christ and growing in Christ isn’t always learning how to pray over people or prophesying.
It is growing in your connection with him, learning how not to let fear consume you in times of darkness, or learning when you get in a argument how to control your anger and walk in love, and also learning the difference between walking in love and than standing up for yourself and not allow people to walk all over you.
Learning to have confidence in yourself and in your walk with Christ and not feel like you have to repent every time you breathe wrong! this is all a part of “agape” love, because it’s all about intimacy with Christ and intimacy with Christ, again is a part of “agape” love.
Alright all I could go on and on about this topic but I’ve wrote way more than I had anticipated I would write so I apologize for such a long blog/vlog but I hope you enjoy…..
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