LOVE Never Gives Up

 by Olga Hermans

It’s on my heart to dig into the fruit for the Spirit with you. So, are you ready to know more? As we examine the fruit of the Spirit, we see that the first fruit mentioned is what the law and scriptures are based upon and that is: LOVE! All the fruit of the Spirit are contained in love. Like an orange with many segments, love has segments such as patience, humility, faithfulness, etc.

If we walk in love, we’ll walk in all the other eight fruits of the Spirit. The word “love” is excessively overused in our society, expressing an attitude about anything from people to foods to clothes to pets and other things.

Love that is based upon a choice that we have to make is not easy for our feelings. Jesus chose to love us in spite of how people treated Him, and He loved before we loved Him in return. We do have the ability to love by choice in spite of how we feel because Rom.5:5 tells us that you have the love of God once you receive Jesus as Lord and Savior. He is love.

The more you choose to love, the more it becomes a natural impulse in your life. The fruit of the Spirit are like muscles in our bodies that have to be developed and grow. We choose to walk in each fruit and each time we do, that spiritual muscle is exercised and grows a little stronger. Love is the most important emotion that we should cultivate and all the other emotions will line up so to speak.

LOVE is patient! If you are around people, you will either develop patience or cause them to close themselves off from those who get on their nerves or rub them wrong way. We choose continually if we will let His fruit grow or die in our lives.

Everybody has times when they need the mercy and help of someone else. What we sow towards others we will reap. If you want people to be patient and understanding with you, then be patient and understanding with others.

If you become a critical, strife-filled person, no one will want to be around you. We as Christians must make an effort to walk in patience and love.

LOVE is kind. Kindness is a quality that has almost been neglected in our generation because of the popular self-seeking attitudes which exist in society. Fast-paced living has subtly caused people to barely have time for themselves, much less for others. Some people feel that if they take time to be kind for others, something will be neglected that can benefit themselves.

As you exercise your spiritual muscles of godliness, add brotherly kindness to it. 2Peter 1:7

LOVE is not envious. The God-kind of love is excited over the blessings of others. Envy and strife open the door to the devil to bring all kinds of evil against the one who has envy or strife. It isn’t worth it to hold envy and strife in your heart.

Job 5:2 says envy can actually kill a person who allows it in his or her life. Keep a healthy, positive attitude towards others.

LOVE doesn’t behave unbecomingly. In our society today, most people with wrong behavior want to blame someone or something for it. Usually it is blamed on the fact that they were from a dysfunctional family, or they had difficult circumstances. So they continue wrong behavior and attitude problems, feeling justified.

God doesn’t let us use Him to excuse our lack of conscience. Growth demands that we accept responsibility for our actions and attitudes and bring them into submission to Jesus. Always try to be mannerly and gracious with whomever you’re with. Remember to consider the feelings of others. As you listen within your spirit, God will be your guide in every situation.

LOVE doesn’t insist upon having its own way. Do you seek to do what will benefit you or what will benefit others? Jesus sought to do God’s will even if it hurt, and He didn’t insist on His own way. Love seeks the will of God, not self-will.
It is by self denial and giving to others that we keep an open channel for the divine flow of God’s love to love through us.

LOVE is not touchy, resentful or easily provoked. God has provided a way for you to stay in His love walk even when people seem to rub you the wrong way. God’s way to remain in love is similar to the old cliché: “Just let things roll off of you like water rolls off a duck’s back.” Think on this when people say things that would normally hurt or offend you.

It is much more important to walk in the freedom and peace of God than to carry “a chip on your shoulders.” If you allow yourself to be easily angered, then others are controlling your life. Get control over your emotions and you’ll get control over your life.

LOVE doesn’t keep a list of wrongs. Do not keep a list of wrongdoings, whether it be in a marriage relationship or in a friendship relationship. The God-kind of love forgives and forgets offenses. There should no secretly kept, running list to pull out and use as ammunition against another person.

Instant forgiveness will close the door to Satan and his schemes in your life. You cannot afford to keep a list of wrongs. Let go of them, and let God help you to walk in peace with others as far as it lies within you. Romans 12:18

LOVE does not rejoice at injustice, is not happy when evil befalls another, does not rejoice over misfortunes of others. When a person has been caught in a fault, rather than tell them, “I told you so,” or feel disgusted with them, go to them if possible and talk with them. Love confronts when wrong has been done, but it also gives help to overcome.

The LOVE of God NEVER gives up on people. Jesus never gave up on the disciples, no matter how often they failed. God’s love never comes to an end. If you feel you are at the end of your rope in your faith for someone, don’t give up. God’s love will cause you to triumph in your stand. The love of God is the foundation for faith, because faith works by love. God’s love is the source of living.

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5 Principles to Have a Winning Attitude

By Olga Hermans

Let’s talk about David in the Bible, who was rejected by his older brothers; they did not include him in the things they did because they thought he was too young. They probably were jealous of him. As a result, I am sure he felt rejected.

Many times God will choose to use people who have felt rejected and been excluded. He selects those whom society would reject in order to show Himself strong. He also purposely chooses what the world would call “weak and foolish” so no one takes the credit that is due to Him alone.

Do you feel like that sometimes?  Let’s be like David in the Bible and have the right attitude; a winning attitude. His attitude was based on five principles of victory that are just as valid for today as they were then.

David was ridiculed for even thinking he could win. Even worse, the mocking and name calling came from his own brothers, who accused him of leaving his work as a shepherd just to see the armies in the battle. Oh, how much they mocked him.

The only thing that David did was be obedient; he took the supplies to his brothers as his father had asked. David didn’t want to do anything else than obey God; his strategy was to keep his eyes firmly on the power of God and not on the appearance of circumstances.

The principles that David used to defeat Goliath in his day are just as valid for us today in defeating our giants. The same enemy comes, and the same principles of victory must be applied:

1. David Made Time to Know God.

He had a personal relationship with God. He knew Him. He walked and talked with Him, and he sang songs to the Lord on those hillsides as he tended his father’s sheep. Those songs are recorded in the Psalms like the 23^rd Psalm; he knew what it was to sit at a table prepared for him in the presence of his enemies.

Psalm 103 is also one of my favorites, where it also indicated that David had a personal relationship with God. The biggest difference between Israel’s soldiers and David was that the soldiers knew about God, but David knew God. David spent time with God and faith is birthed out of a relationship.

2. David understood God’s Covenant

David understood that God is holy and that He is totally committed to those who love and obey Him. That means everything God has and everything He is will be available to the one with who He is in covenant.

David understood that a challenge against him was a direct challenge to Almighty God. If you are in covenant with God, the challenges you face are against God Almighty. When you are born again, God is linked up with you, and He will fight for you.

When you understand the covenant, you will not be thinking about how big your problem is. Instead, you will be thinking about how great and awesome your God is.

3. David Spoke His Faith

David spoke his faith out loud in the face of the lies of the devil. If you are going to slay the giants, you will have to talk in faith. The giants will speak too! Sickness will say, “I am going to take you out of this life.” Financial bondage will say, “I am going to bury you with bankruptcy.” Strife and problems will say, “I am going to rip your home and marriage apart.”

Those are the moments that the Word of God on the inside of you must rise up from within your spirit and come out of your lips. Faith has a language all on its own, and the voice  of authority can be heard in hell when it is inside your spirit and you speak it out!

4. David Used What He Had

You may think that you don’t have enough to fight your battle. Believe me, you have enough and it is in your hands. Would God put you in the earth, give His Son for you, raise Him from the dead, and then not supply you with enough to defeat the giants that are in your land? God has given you enough. It is in your hands.

5. David Started Small

David learned how to battle the giant by fighting the lion and the bear. What David learned how to battle the lion prepared him to defeat the bear, and what he learned fighting both of them prepared him to whip the giant Goliath.

Many people want to take on a giant when they would not even take on a kitty cat. They are intimidated by a “meow”!

You need to hang on these 5 winning principles; they not only worked for David; they worked for me and they work for you. So, take those 5 stones and start slinging!

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How Do You Handle Rejection

by Olga Hermans

Sooner or later everybody experiences rejection: at home, at your job, at school or at church. We can experience it in different forms; some experience abuse, some go through really hard times. We can experience it when we fail at something that we think we could handle. We can go through a deep sense of rejection when a relationship breaks up. The fact is that everybody, no matter the age experiences rejection.

It doesn’t matter where the rejection is coming from; we have to realize that there can be an important lesson in the rejection. Somebody said once “If we don’t handle rejection the right way, rejection will mishandle us the wrong way”. To deal with rejection properly, we need to gain some truth about this.

My family and I love to play UNO, I think it is a very fun game. So when the cards are dealt there is only ONE purpose in my mind and that is to WIN with the cards that are given to me. You see, life is more or less the same; life can offer us cards of rejection. It is up to us how we handle these cards of rejection in a way that we will win in life.

There is a secret here though, because this is only possible when we tune into God and listen to what He tells us on how to get a grip on rejection. When we tune into His wisdom, He will help us to handle rejection and help us to become a better person. He will help us to get to the other side so to speak.

Rejection is painful, but it also is a wake-up call. God uses it to wake us up to our calling. There was a time in my life that I was involved in a “spiritual development” group. My best friend and people that I thought meant the world to me were in this group. One evening we had one of those visualizations, where the leader of the group told us as story, we closed our eyes and saw the story told in front of us.

The images that I saw in front of me were that I went far beyond the group up on a mountain. The group stopped half-way, but something on the inside of me told me to keep going until the very top, where an old man was waiting.

As I stood there I saw a very narrow ridge going to the other side where a man in a white robe was waving me to come over. As I looked down I saw a river of blood, but I couldn’t see myself go to the other side and the man in the white robe disappeared. I looked at that older man and asked him “what do I have to do?” He said: “You will know, you will know at the right time.” That was it.

As always we were to share what we experienced. I told what I had “seen”, I could sense this tremendous rejection coming towards me. My experience was not received very well and to make a long story short, they asked me to leave the group. So, I stood up and left. I was completely sick to my stomach, everything literally turned upside down on the inside of me.

Much later as I looked back I could see that God allowed this to happen to me because He was calling me to Himself. So, this was an alarm clock that God uses to wake up our “callings”. You and I have a purpose in life. One of the ways that we discover that purpose is through rejection.

We always want to know why we got rejected in the first place. You might want to know why this situation or that person turned you down. Or you want to know why you didn’t make the cut, didn’t get the job or didn’t get an email or somebody unfriended you on facebook. Whichever the case is, the fact remains that we do indeed experience rejection from people. But why?

Here are some reasons why we experience rejection:

1. People reject us when we don’t meet their expectations.
They reject us because they think we do something wrong or might be wrong; we are not what they are looking for, so we are disqualified. We get rejected because we don’t have the looks, the qualifications, education or experience. You simply don’t fit in that particular situation and you get removed from the situation,

2. Another reason that people reject us is when we go beyond their expectations.
You can get rejected for being right or doing right. You might stand out just a little too much for what they stand for. If it is a job situation they might tell you that you are overqualified for the job or they cannot afford to pay you, so they don’t hire you.

3. The third reason why we experience rejection from people is somewhat a combination of the first two.
This is where you get rejected for doing right and wrong at the same time. You might have done the right thing, but at the wrong time. Friends and even family might reject us because we try to plan things with them at the wrong time. In this case, you are rejected because of the timing of what you were trying to do.

In his book “21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership,” Dr. John Maxwell makes a profound comment about timing: “The wrong action at the wrong time leads to disaster; the right action at the wrong time brings resistance; the wrong action at the right time is a mistake; the right action at the right time leads to success.” (Maxwell, 1998, 197)

This information might be something to think about and I would love to hear what you have to say about it. Think about the cards life can bring you, but there is a reason behind it. Like with me it was God calling me out of that group; others might experience rejection because God has another job or another partner for you.

The way we have to learn to deal with rejection and getting our life back is by NOT putting our trust in people, but by putting our trust completely in God. People will always disappoint you, because we are not perfect, we are human. God will never disappoint you, He will show what He has in store for you. When He closes a door for you, He always opens another for you. God is always on your side, He will help you to turn rejection stumbling blocks into stepping stones for success. We can’t control what happens to us, but we can indeed control how we respond to it.

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