{"id":1996,"date":"2019-08-05T01:32:38","date_gmt":"2019-08-05T01:32:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/?p=1996"},"modified":"2019-08-05T01:32:38","modified_gmt":"2019-08-05T01:32:38","slug":"completely-loved-hot-fudge-sundae-with-or-without-sprinkles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/?p=1996","title":{"rendered":"Completely Loved – Hot Fudge Sundae With or Without Sprinkles"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Father has loved Me, I have loved you; now remain in My love (John 15:9<\/strong>)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

As the Father loves Jesus, He loves us. Pause and allow the astonishing realities of this truth to have full access to your heart. Love is a human need. It\u2019s fundamentally wired into the fabricate of our hearts. We\u2019re designed to be loved and to love, starting with Christ\u2019s love for us.[1]<\/a> God’s love is bedrock. If we don\u2019t know it, we\u2019ll try and get it from those we\u2019re supposed to be loving. Jesus\u2019 trademark command depends on us receiving His love and giving it away. \u201cThis is my commandment that you love one another, just as I have loved you.\u201d<\/span>[2]<\/a> There\u2019s a joyous freedom in loving others only for their sake, but it starts with knowing, remaining in and walking in the complete love of Christ.<\/p>\n

Paul tells us we’re complete in Christ.[3]<\/a> The Greek word he used for \u2018complete\u2019 means filled to the brim, fully satisfied. We\u2019re satiated in a love which fully validates us; an eternal love which is wider, longer, higher and deeper than our minds can grasp.[4]<\/a> Christ has filled our love cup to overflowing.<\/p>\n

I know these words are true, but I struggle. When I\u2019m treated well, it\u2019s easy to attach my ‘heart strings’ to human love. When people are unkind and hurtful, I forget Christ\u2019s love\u00a0 and feel rejected.<\/p>\n

Just returning from a sunset walk on the beach capping off an incredible family trip. We rented a house on Tybee Island where we enjoyed seafood, board games, ping pong, golf carts and sitting in chairs at the ocean\u2019s edge.\u00a0 In the midst of God\u2019s provision and creation, we experienced love in a myriad of unselfish acts of kindness towards each other. Our hearts stayed warmed and I can\u2019t stop smiling.<\/p>\n

But these human expressions of love are not always the case. I\u2019ve also experienced unkind words and actions which felt like heart shrapnel, carefully aimed for maximum pain.<\/p>\n

Life can be filled with extreme ranges of human love and hate. If we don\u2019t fully comprehend God\u2019s complete love for us and seek our core feelings of love from people, we\u2019re in for an emotional roller coaster of fleeting highs and deep pain. We simply can not be fulfilled by human love.<\/p>\n

For a moment, consider the complete love of Christ being like eating your fill of hot fudge sundaes – rich ice cream, topped with dark chocolate, real whipped cream and a cherry. Like the succulence sundaes satisfy our appetite, God\u2019s love satiates our hearts. Nothing more is needed. We\u2019re filled to the brim with love.<\/p>\n

In this analogy, human love would be like sprinkles on the Sundae. They’re nice. They add to the flavor and experience, but we\u2019re still fully satisfied without them. Sprinkles by themselves are sweet, but hardly filling.<\/p>\n

If a person treats us unlovingly, we\u2019re still okay. They’re just sprinkles. We don\u2019t need their love to complete us.<\/p>\n

Lord, I\u2019m beginning to wrap my heart around what your eternal love means. Please continue to show me. I like experiencing love from those around me, but your love completes me . In the fulness of your love, I rest. Teach me how to love others as you\u2019ve loved me.<\/em><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> I John 4:19<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> John 15:12<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Colossians 2:10<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ephesians 3:17-20<\/p>\n

Joy in the Journey is about the gladness of God’s nearness in the midst of life’s adventures. Subscribe below to get email notifications of new posts. We post a few times a month. Thank you for reading.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Novels by the Author:<\/p>\n

Beyond Time<\/a><\/p>\n

Hope Remains<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just returning from a sunset walk on the beach to cap off an incredible family trip. We rented a house on Tybee Island where we enjoyed seafood, board games, ping pong, golf carts and sitting in chairs at the water\u2019s edge. Our hearts are full. It was truly one of the best vacations we\u2019ve had. In the midst of God\u2019s provision and creation, we experienced love in a myriad of unselfish acts of kindness towards each other. Our hearts stayed warmed and I couldn\u2019t stop smiling.<\/p>\n

But these human expressions of love are not always the case. I\u2019ve also experienced unkind words and actions which felt like heart shrapnel, carefully aimed for maximum pain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[248],"tags":[890,684,1330,1337,1323,849,1321,1335,1339,1142,731,772,1326,1329,1334,1340,1333,1061,172,189,163,1341,99,1327,1331,1325,1324,994,1328,1322,1332,1336,1338],"class_list":["post-1996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-loved-by-god","tag-abiding-love","tag-beach-sunrise","tag-board-games","tag-cherry","tag-colossians-210","tag-complete-in-christ","tag-completely-loved","tag-dark-chocolate","tag-deeper","tag-emotional-pain","tag-ephesians-316-21","tag-filled-to-the-brim","tag-full-of-love","tag-golf-cart","tag-heart-shrapnel","tag-higher","tag-hurtful","tag-hurtful-actions","tag-i-john-419","tag-john-1512","tag-john-159","tag-longer","tag-love","tag-ping-pong","tag-roller-coaster","tag-satisfied","tag-satsiated","tag-seafood","tag-sun-rises","tag-tybee-island","tag-unkind","tag-whipped-cream","tag-wider"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1996"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2003,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1996\/revisions\/2003"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}