God's Love IN US

This is a young Hannah Litzenburger, shortly before she became Hannah Schlegel. She's my maternal grandmother and has been in heaven for quite some time, and I really miss her being here. She's a love of my life.

She and my Grandfather homesteaded a farm/ranch in Kansas I believe in the '40's and lived there together until her death. My Grandfather lived several years more before his death. Their home was one of my favorite places in the world.

When I would awaken and come down the stairs for breakfast, she would call out to me, tell me "Good morning Suzie Q!".

I loved hanging clothes on the clothes line with her...working in her veggie garden with her. I'd sit on the counter in her kitchen and watch her cook/bake. Sometime in the summer months I would help her strip her BEAUTIFUL wood floors and rewax them. My brother and I could dash from her kitchen in our socks on and slide almost the entire length of her dining/living room. Sometimes I'd help her can produce from her garden.
She was a very accomplished seamstress, and did wonderful work with embroidery. Grandma had a smile that would melt my heart, and her eyes would dance so. I always believed that she was perfect. Well, as I became an adult, I realized she was not, but I DID recognize a perfect heart, sweet and tender before the Lord and without malice, FULL of love for those around her....not just those fortunate enough to call her OURS. She LOVED God.

There's a place over in II Chronicles 16:9 that tells us:
For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.

I Kings 18:61 says:
Let your heart therefore be perfect with the LORD our God, to walk in his statutes, and to keep his commandments, as at this day.

It's a posture of the heart. Ahhhhhh.............I desire that for all my days.

Keeping His commandments is a piece of cake....
Over in Matthew 22:37-40 we're told:
37 Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.'
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."

He told us here that if we LOVE God with all our whole being and love our neighbor as ourselves then we're obeying all the commandments. Well, if we love God, then we'll not do the things that will displease Him, and if we love our neighbors as ourselves....we'll not lie, steal, covet....you get the picture. It's called the Law of Love.

Romans 13:10 says it this way:
Love works no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

In I Corinthians 13:4-7 (Amplified version) tells it this way:
4Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.

5 It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God's love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it (it pays no attention to a suffered wrong).

6 It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.

7Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything (without weakening).

So what I do now is make this into a prayer -

Lord, I endure long, and am patient and kind. Your LOVE IN ME is not envious nor does it boil over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, Your Love in me does not display itself haughtily.
I thank You Lord that Your Love is not conceited arrogant and inflated with pride; it is not rude unmannerly and does not act unbecomingly. Your love in me does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it (it pays no attention to a suffered wrong).
Your Love in me does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.
Lord, Your Love in me bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything without weakening. In Jesus' Name.

Thank You for Your LOVE!