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“If you pursue loving God and loving others, love will pursue and find you.”

A thought by Erwin Raphael McManus (2003-09-04) from his book, Uprising: A Revolution of the Soul (Kindle Locations 2123-2124). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

The key is it is both.  It’s in pursuing to love God and pursing to love others that love will find you.  In our self-centeredness we are constantly looking for someone to love us but in God’s mind and plan that is backwards.

Now if I am striving to love so I will be loved I will not find true love.  We are to love no matter whether it is returned or not.  We are just to love. That is what real love does.  But if i strive to love God and love others then that selfless act will bring love to me.

Earlier Erwin says, “God is inviting us to focus on loving rather than on being loved. God knows that only when our hearts are in this position are we able to experience the love we long for.”

Margaret and I go to Erwin’s church, Mosaic Hollywood and Hank Fortener, the other Teaching Pastor at Mosaic shared yesterday that this is also the way you receive healing from your pain.  It is in striving to heal someone else’s pain that you are healed.  It is through serving others that our needs are truly met.  Somehow in our selfish state we have messed up life as God has created it to be lived.

Listen, loving with strings attached is not true love.  True love has no strings attached.  What that means is that if you do something for someone and then are hurt because they didn’t thank you or didn’t do something in return for you then you didn’t do what you did because you loved them with real love.  You did it for selfishness or to be loved.  Again, God knows that only when our hearts are focused on loving rather than being loved are we able to experience the love we long for.

Spend some time in reflection on this thought.  This could be a real defining moment in your life.   “If you pursue loving God and loving others, love will pursue and find you.”

So how is your love life? 
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