--PRE-SERVICE PRAYER--

Focus: 3 Keys to Love and Peace

Foundation Scripture: Colossians 3:15 (NIV)

Prayer Points:
1.Trust that God is Lord of All. Focus on what YOU can Control.
2. Trust that God will supply all your needs. Focus on what you already have and be thankful.
3. Trust that God will never leave you nor forsake you. Focus on the present.
4. Expansion of Linked UP Church.
5. Sunday Morning Services!

The first most important love to embrace is God’s love towards us. We grow in that revelation by spending time in HIS Word and in HIS Presence. We’re reassured of HIS love when we realize how much of HIS presence, provision, peace, and favor is a part of our everyday lives. Living in a state of gratitude will open our eyes to all that HE has for us.

Defining “healthy love”

Healthy – a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of dis-ease or infirmity (weakness).

Love – a willingness to prioritize another’s well-being or happiness over your own regardless of their response.

How does God define love?
vs. 18 – a “demonstration [of] through our loving deeds.

How do we achieve (or function in) healthy love?
vs. 19 – “…the truth lives within us…” HAVE GOD’S WORD IN YOU.

What is the next most important healthy love?
vs. 20 Whenever our hearts make us feel guilty and remind us of our failures, we know that God is much greater and more merciful than our conscience, and he knows everything there is to know about us.

The first most important love to embrace is God’s love towards us. We grow in that revelation by spending time in HIS Word and in HIS Presence. We’re reassured of HIS love when we realize how much of HIS presence, provision, peace, and favor is a part of our everyday lives. Living in a state of gratitude will open our eyes to all that HE has for us.

The second most important love to embrace is learning to love ourselves. We grow in that revelation by being honest with who WE are, our limitations, gifts, talents, personalities, growth opportunities, and adopted behaviors from our experiences.

1. Loving yourself requires forgiveness.

Forgiveness - to cease to feel resentment towards another; to grant a pardon from an offense; to cancel a debt or liability.

a. You forgiving others opens the gates to God forgiving you.

Forgiveness is a command, not a suggestion.

Forgiveness is part one and most importantly for YOU.

We give others control when we fail to forgive.

b. We must forgive ourselves consciously and subconsciously.

Healing is part two, and still, for YOU.

We must also forgive ourselves for the hurt we’ve caused others. We’ve all hurt someone else.

The enemy is the author of guilt. When our hearts condemn us and remind us of our failures, we’re free to forgive ourselves and God is free to continue moving in our lives because we’ve forgiven others.

Oftentimes, we have issues forgiving ourselves because we still want to hold those that offended us in our prison of unforgiveness. Since we believe others still should be punished for what they did, we are invited to feel the same way about ourselves, subconsciously. We then live in a land of circumstances, consequences, and judgement.

c. Accepting responsibility allows one to learn from the mistake, grow from it, and even be promoted supernaturally. The longer we hide behind the “impossibility” of making a mistake or that what we did was a mistake, the longer we may live in a state of unforgiveness, judgement, and chaos. We create for ourselves a chaotic culture.

When we except that Jesus fills the gap for our imperfections and that we CANNOT be perfect, altogether right, correct, or even totally understood, our hearts are open to being free in our imperfections and mistakes while growing towards.

d. Freedom and healing is achieve when we truly grant mercy to others and ourselves so that we can walk in the fulness of who God is in us and who we are in HIM.

Complete freedom lives in the existence of forgiveness. Seeing ourselves through the eyes of God and the sacrifice of Jesus allows us the (a) truly flee sin and embrace life in pursuit of righteousness and (b) walk in the new identity that was purchased for us (freedom).

2. Loving yourself requires boundaries

Boundaries - limits, parameters, or barriers.

Boundaries should exist in all relationships. This is where self-care takes place both physically, emotionally, and mentally.

49% of adults surveyed self-identified as people-pleasers. -Psychology Today 2022

a. Protect your time & space.

Learning the limits of you and your relationships requires being honest with your availability and willingness to do or be what another person requests. i.e. money, time, service, connections, or referrals

b. Be secure in YOUR Salvation

Don’t allow others to judge your Christianity based off anything that’s not sin.

People will judge, criticize, or even reject you not because you say you’re a “Christian” but because you are not “Chrisitan” enough.

Honor others in their Christian walk and their boundaries.

It is God at work in you to continue to improve and do what pleases HIM.

c. Garbage in, garbage out!

Be careful of what you expose yourself to.

Protect your heart, ears, and eyes from whatever is destructive, chaotic, evil, or sinful.

Clear your conscience of evil by not participating in what violates that.

d. It is easier to avoid sin than to resist sin.

Do not allow yourself to be in an environment conducive to sin.

Know thine own self. Be honest with your weakness, temptations, and carnal wrongs.

Be mindful of those that influence such behavior (friends, relatives, peers, co-workers).

Galatians 5:19-21 TLB

But when you follow your own wrong inclinations, your lives will produce these evil results: impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, [20] idolatry, spiritism (that is, encouraging the activity of demons), hatred and fighting, jealousy and anger, constant effort to get the best for yourself, complaints and criticisms, the feeling that everyone else is wrong except those in your own little group-and there will be wrong doctrine, [21] envy, murder, drunkenness, wild parties, and all that sort of thing. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

e. Judge thine own self.

If you must ask yourself if something is “alright” then you’ve already violated your own awareness.

Be aware of how you are perceived.

Always err on the side of right.

f. Honor your Sabbath.

Restore yourself with the rest and recreation that you enjoy that doesn’t take you away from God.

What are you willing to do or not do on your Sabbath.

Learn the art of consecration.

Conclusion:

Knowing and trusting God for yourself will help you to walk confidently in who HE created you to be and to be honest with yourself. Your integrity is defined by what you do and who you are when no one is watching. This requires forgiveness and boundaries.

Boundaries should not be a response to issues related to forgiveness, instead boundaries help you operate in relationships in a way that allows you to be authentic to God’s righteousness in you and the humility that goes along with that identity. We teach people how to treat us.

Just because we changed or grew doesn’t mean that the people around us grew with us or will honor our growth so it will take conversation and boundaries to re-teach/re-train people how to treat us. In the long run, we earn respect, and our dignity stays intact.