Hits like home.

"Rick says that I will love God because he first loved me. I will obey god because I love God. But if I cannot accept God's love, I cannot love Him in return, and I cannot obey Him. Self-discipline will never make us feel righteous or clean; accepting God's love will. The ability to accept God's unconditional grace and ferocious love is all the fuel we need to obey Him in return. Accepting God's kindness and free love is something the devil does not want us to do. If we hear, in our inner ear, a voice saying we are failures, we are losers, we will never amount to anything, this is the voice of Satan trying to convince the bride that the groom does not love her. This is not the voice of God. God woos us with kindness, He changes our character with the passion of His love. .."

"Our "behavior" will not be changed long with self-discipline, but fall in love and a human will accomplish what he never thought possible. The laziest of men will swim the English channel to win his woman. I think what Rick said is worth repeating that by accepting God's love for us, we fall in love with HIm, and only then wedo we have the fuel we need to obey.

In exchange for our humility and willingness to accept the charity of God, we are given a kingdom. And a beggar's kingdom is better than a proud man's delusion."

-Blue like Jazz by Donald Miller.

goodness, i just wanted to bold the whole text written above, actually. love it when God shows me things in a new perspective. He's been teaching me the lesson about obedience, and its SO easy to caught up in the "okay Lord, this is right.. and this is wrong, i'm doing what is right.. see?".. "doing right"... isn't necessarily what it's about.. it's "being right." And as simple as that is... in my heart, its so profound and what God's been showing me. It's late and I should spend my time with my sweet Savior. goodnight :D