BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

Commander Kellie’s Corner Love Extravagantly! Love. It is the obvious thing to talk about in February, right? Superkid, I want to show you that it’s the main thing to think about, talk about and walk in ALL the time. We all want to know God and see Him more clearly in our lives. But without making a decision to LOVE, we will never know Him like we could. You might say, “Commander Kellie, God is BIG. How could I ever understand or know Him?” Sounds like a hard question, but guess what—not! If you really want to know God, you have to start with love and end with love. And the best place to start is with the Bible and 1 Corinthians 13. We’re all familiar with that chapter, which has come to be known as the “love chapter.” It’s one of my favorites because it helps me remember what love IS and what love DOES, especially when I NEED to DO love and don’t want to. The love chapter helps you DECIDE to love. It changes your thinking and your perspective, which means it helps you keep your eyes off of yourself. If you’ve been reading and growing along with me this past year, then you have made a lot of decisions about following after Jesus, to act like Him and talk like Him. Do you realize what has happened? You have learned to walk in love. Just by making some simple decisions, you now know God better. Everything we’ve talked about is represented in this one chapter of the Bible. Let’s look at what God says love is in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, The Message: "Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, doesn’t have a swelled head, doesn’t force itself on others, isn’t always “me first,” doesn’t fly off the handle, doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, doesn’t revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, trusts God always, al-ways looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end." Superkid, I am confident that you have grown up in the past year. Grown up in love and grown up in Jesus. Never ever stop! The funny thing about God is the more you love others, the more you begin to know He loves you. Jesus first loved us. You’ve probably heard that your whole life. But I want to challenge you this month to become AWARE of His love coming TO you and going THROUGH you to others. Love doesn’t just SAY, “I love you,” love DOES, “I love you.” Every time you put someone first, every time you put up with things (or brothers/sisters) that annoy you, or you care for someone else more than you do yourself, you are DOING love. You’re doing Jesus, being Jesus, knowing Jesus. What an awesome adventure! What a wonderful life we have with Him. Superkid, we need Jesus every day of our lives. We need to have a living, growing relationship with Him and our heavenly Father. We have all we need when we have Him. First Corinthians 13 tells us so! Love trusts Him in all things and keeps on going to the end. You know what I like the best about this chapter? The last two verses, which tell us what we are all about: “We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love” (verses 12-13, MSG). This is what God’s Word says to you today, Superkid: Trust in God, hope unswervingly and above all, love EXTRAVAGANTLY! Don’t you like that word extravagantly? I do. It means “excessively high, going beyond what is justifiable or deserved.” I am so glad that Jesus loves me more than I deserve. And I’m ready to put into practice all that we’ve learned this past year, and love people excessively much, even more than they deserve. You’ve come up to a new level, Superkid. You’ve joined a new class, and there’s a new teacher for this class. Start expecting to hear more from the Lord. He can trust those who walk in love with new missions, new ideas and new adventures. Never forget that, Superkid. Trust, hope and love. Love, love, love! That’s by far the best thing to do. How do I know? The Bible tells me so! ♥ BVOV : 9

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