Friendship Book

"His love is alive--moving, working, renewing--in us, around us and through us. It's three-dimensional. God loves us. He models love for us and loves others through us. He even loves us through people he places in our lives." The Friendship Book by Steve Wingfield

In most conflicts, friendly fire is a very dangerous thing to encounter. The spiritual realm does not follow the same rules as the physical realm. I believe we are in the midst of the most beautiful onslaught (friendly fire) known to man. God's three-dimensional love working on us in and from multiple ways and aspects!

God has us surrounded with His all encompassing love. It began when He fashioned us out of his love on the potter's wheel and continued through the longsuffering that was and is being endured by the Lord Almighty from all the countless rejections and abandonments we have given Him. The price paid to come to earth, leave heaven behind, and to suffer those rejections--criticism, physical pain, the required abandonment by the Father, and ridicule all suffered IN THE FLESH! Jesus died for us so that we may be brought back to intimacy with God. He died so that the Father would be glorified by the Son's humbleness and obedience. A love knowing no bounds is given freely to us everyday of every year. All we have to do is accept it!

We get the experience of loving one another after the fashion of Jesus. We show and grow love in different ways through its use of caring and ministering to one another. Sacrificial love is shown by the Son. The tendency to stay up late (giving up sleep) to talk over problems and concerns with one another. We will also give up our time to go do activities which make others truly happy! Love needs to be shown to one another, for another's words only carry so far alone. Give hugs with wild abandon and show your love and mean it! Open up your life, home, and heart to one another so there are no facades or pretenses. The partitions in your life are kicked down and fresh life is breathed deeply. An open corridor is created in your life, heart, and soul. God is the same way, and He wants you to see Him through an open corridor with no partitions.

We experience love via others showering us with love that we do not always deserve or earn! Sound familiar? God's love is soooo good and it is EVERYWHERE. He knows that we have to have outside help so He brings people in our path to show us the different loves that we need! New shades of love must be added to our palette! God does this with all the different people that he brings into our life, for He knows that everyone has different ways of loving. You never know what you are going to pick up from one another! Tis another reason you should make new relationships and love others with wild abandon. "Grounded in a personal relationship with God, we are freed to love people with confidence and abandon." Steve Wingfield (pg. 6 The Friendship Book) Friends are filters for the Lord. They filter the Lord's love in different ways for we are all uniquely and individually made. The mold has been forever broken on each and every one of us. We should treasure what we learn from those around us!

It is a glorious attack that God surrounds us with! Friendly fire comes in the form of bullets of love. These bullets do no damage to us but they actually do us good and growth. They show us the different facets of love, kindness, and compassion which we may never have experienced! He knows what we need and becomes the Great Provider to minister to our souls. He will do it through Himself, directly in our hearts, and indirectly through others! It is a barrage that I am thankful to be caught in the midst of and to partake in unleashing the ammo that God has given me. Do not stay on the sidelines and look glum! Grab your heart and jump into the fray! You will take hits but love mends its own wounds! You will be better for it!

kenny