That all things are possible to him who believes, that they are less difficult to him who hopes, they are more easy to him who loves, and still more easy to him who perseveres in the practice of these three virtues. Brother Lawrence (Practice The Presence Of God)
Hope gives you the desire to work toward a goal – the beautiful picture that is painted before your inner eyes, faith gives you rational, experiential confidence to persist at what you see with your inner eyes, but love gives you the motivation and power to choose what pleases your beloved at every moment.
Faithful men can work hard and persist at the lofty goals, but they still have to force themselves to press onward. Hope gives men visions, which inspires them and gives them the passion and desire to work harder, but Hope and Faith both have to do with what you want in the future.
That means in the meantime you will still take frequent breaks or slack of from your goals even if you have hope and faith.
Of all people, those who love most are the most diligent, for at every moment they put it on their top priority to choose what is best for their beloved ones or objects.
They don’t need set schedule or time tables. They just serve spontaneously. They know how to take action and live in the moment.
Love God with all your heart, for in heaven it’s eternally too late to show Him you mean it. You only have a short life on earth to show Him you still love Him while in the midst of hardships and trials.
We have great promises in the Bible, without faith it is hard for us to claim them.
Without concrete, visionary hopes, it’s hard to find His promises interesting enough for us to study them in depth.
We have great power to draw upon from the Holy Spirit to live above sins and worldliness, but without love, we will have very little motivations and desires to ask for that power in the first place.
Without love, it’s very hard for us to want to unlove the world and sins.
To live a spiritually victorious life, we must want it first. If we love God, we will want it. It’s hard to want purity, holiness, and godliness. But Love makes us want them.
By “want”, I mean 24/7 . I used to “want” to choose God’s best every morning, but by afternoon I fell into what is worldly and sinful. My will is unwilling to sin, but I lacked the Spiritual power to live out the sinless life that the Bible promised.
But once I learned that I can draw upon the power of the Holy Spirit to live above sins by choosing to obey His prompting all the time, I still sin.
Why? because I didn’t want to use that power on a 24/7 basis; I didn’t want to have to obey 24/7! Maybe half the times, but not all the times, because it’s tiring if you have to choose something you don’t really love all the time.
Still, it’s easy for us Christians to think that we want spiritual power. When we have emotional high for the things of God, we imagine we want to be heavenly all day long. But after a couple of hours, when the high is gone; when things are back to normal again, we will desire the world and our pet sins again.
To remain desiring God, we must ask for the supernatural love.
To remain in the state of desiring God’s best, lofty visions will not do it; Ambition will not do it; Fears of punishment will not do it; Willpower will not do it. Only the love of God can make us consistently choose that which is pleasing to God moment after moment, hour after hour, and day after day.
Vision, fears, ambition, and willpower will only enable us to desire what pleases God from time to time, but not all the time.
Once you have this consistent “want”, you can choose to draw upon the power of the Spirit all the time, instead of putting it aside so you can entertain the world and the temptations just a little longer.
You know it’s never “a little longer”. Without the love of God, we will never stop flirting with sins and the world, and the Spirit will forever have a minor role in our life.
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Tags: Holy Spirit, Productivity, success, Time Management