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Jul 12, 2020

248 If We Love One Another, God Lives In Us, A Guided Christian Meditation on 1 John 4:7-12

I'm Chaplain Jared and I work as a hospice chaplain and an ICU chaplain, my purpose in making this podcast is to help you find more peace in your life and to be more open for your heart to be changed by the Spirit of God. By using centuries old form of Christian Meditation named Lectio Divina:

Outline: Relaxation, Reading, Meditation, Prayer, Contemplation and Visualization.

Get into a place where you can sit comfortably and uninterrupted for about 20 minutes.You should hopefully not be driving or anything tensing or unrelaxing. If you feel comfortable to do so, I invite you to close your eyes.

Guided Relaxation / Guided Meditation:

Breathe and direct your thoughts to contacting God. Let your stomach be a balloon inflate, deflate.

Bible verses for Meditation:

1 John 4:7-12
NIV
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

NRSV
7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11 Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

Meditation on Scripture:

We know in our hearts that Love is the highest ideal for us to reach toward as we grown in our understanding of God. Unfortunately we all struggle with pieces of hate and rage in our hearts as well that can be provoked to come pouring out. In this moment let us take intention of embracing the love. It would be immature or incomplete for us to claim that we are free from hate. Yet John’s epistle equates love with faith. As our faith matures it must move toward love, for God is love.

What does it mean that God is love? I believe it means that God’s presence is primarily defined as love. In other words wherever and whenever we are near Him, we are encompassed by love. It is comparing fire to light. When we are in communion with God, we are living in His love. I remember a time when I was a young man and I was praying. I had a notion of faith and was actively praying to God. In one moment I became incredibly aware and confident that God could hear my prayer. My heart was overcome with a feeling that I was loved. My goal became to live in such a way that I invited that experience into my life as often as possible. I have accomplished this with many failures but a dedicated focus for decades. It is a feeling that has become much more common to me to me know but at one point in my life it was a new surprise.

I see the love of God as directly connected to the kind of faith that Jesus demands from us. Our goal should be then to live in that Love and to constantly pray and act to build that faith and love.

Meditation of Prayer:

Pray as directed by the Spirit.

Dedicate these moments to the patient waiting, when you feel ready ask God for understanding you desire from Him.

Meditation of God and His Glory / Hesychasm:

I invite you to sit in silence feeling being patient for your own faults and trials.

Summarize what insights you have gained during this meditation and meditate and visualize positive change in your life:
This is a listener funded podcast at patreon.com/christianmeditationpodcast

Updates:

Final Question: What can you do in your life to more clearly reflect the love of God?

Final Thought: My hope is that my repeated message focusing on love will not come across as unimaginative or unsophisticated. I firmly hold that there is nothing more important in our lives than God and His central message through Jesus Christ was a command to love and then to follow Him. It is my hope and expectation that the more focus we place on making our hearts open to the love of God, the more we invite God’s influence into our hearts. When it arrives it is the most rewarding thing we can seek. This Love forms the center of an eternal relationship with God.

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