Here’s why loving right matters the most and why we keep in step with the Spirit in the day to day of everyday.
Loving right matters the most. We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. 1 John 3:16
Life is short. Forever is real. Loving right matters the most.
What is loving right?
John tells us what real love is. In 1 John 4:7-19 he writes:
“Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.
This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us. And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us.
Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect.
So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he loved us first.” 1 John 4:7-19 NLT
He goes on to say in 2 John 6 “And this is love-that we walk according to his commands”
Loving right matters the most - so keep in step with the Spirit in the day to day of everyday
Perfect Love
Let me tell you what I mean. John has told us that perfect love is love that comes from God and goes through us to others.
Perfect love is love that is complete. We get it from God and we give it to others. It’s that kind of love that casts out fear.
We need to understand we can’t love others the way God wants us to until we experience His love to us. We’ll grow tired in doing good if we try to do it on our own.
Do you want to see what I mean?
How do we love others?
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
That kind of love is agapeo love. Agapeo love is the decision to love. It means we don’t do it when we feel like it, we do it when we decide to do it. But that’s about all that depends on us.
How do you love everybody always like that?
How can we be patient and kind and not jealous or boastful or proud or rude or demand our own way or not be irritable or keep records of wrong, how to we never give up never lose faith, always be hopeful and endure every circumstance?
We only can with the help of Holy Spirit.
God helps us to love right
By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. 2 Peter 1:3
People ask, Do I need the Holy Spirit to get to heaven? You need Holy Spirit to go to Walmart.
Loving right matters the most - so keep in step with the Spirit in the day to day of everyday
LIFE HACK
Erin Rollenhagen says whenever someone comes to complain about something to you tell yourself they are saying to themselves “I feel insecure over ____________ in my life”
What if you don’t know they blank? Ask Holy Spirit:
1. What are they insecure about?
2. How do I show them your love?
It deactivates confrontation and activates compassion. Love is patient and kind, it doesn’t demand it’s own way. Love is not irritable.
Do not argue with people who are are argumentative.
Loving right matters the most - so keep in step with the Spirit in the day to day of everyday
Is doing right better than simply knowing right? Knowledge can puff us up, but love will build us up.
Doing right is better than simply knowing right.
Now that you know these things, God will bless you for doing them. John 13:17
Is it more important for us to be doing right than to simply know what right?
I think the statement “You know more than you do” is sadly ironic in a couple of stages in Christian journey.
New people on the journey often think they don’t know enough. It’s those of us further ahead in the journey’s fault they think that way. We’ve failed to impress on them that it is Holy Spirit who teaches them all things and will remind them of what Jesus taught His disciples. Holy Spirit is God and God is enough.
I’ve often said if I can teach someone to hear God and obey God, I know they’ll go far in their Christian walk. That tool and that decision will protect them, empower them, and transform them.
Sadly too many people - who have been Christians for a lot longer - never learned or implemented that tool and that decision. How do I know? Because in much of the western world Christianity is irrelevant. We got that way because we haven’t listened and/or obeyed God.
“You know more than you do” should be a statement with a bit of sting for those of us who have been along the way a bit longer. We’ve been so good at learning knowledge. We’ve emphasized “the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ”.
But that knowledge- His knowledge - was designed to be put into action.
Don’t believe me?
Do you know you spouse loves you by what they say or by what they say AND what they do?
The school our kids went to does service trips every year and every year Hindu and Muslim parents send their kids on these service trips. On these service trips the kids share the love of Jesus. The world needs more Hindu and Muslim kids sharing the love of Jesus. They may not “know” in that they accept and come to Jesus as their Lord, but they know just enough to love in His name.
I’ve found more people catch the Kingdom by living out the Kingdom than catch the Kingdom by learning knowledge about the Kingdom. So I celebrate when people practice most of the 10 commandments because even most of us Christians ignore the Sabbath one. I know as they live the Kingdom they are so much more open to becoming part of the Kingdom.
Isn’t that what we’re all to be about - our Father’s business?
If you want to experience more of the feeling that you’re walking with God in garden in the cool of the day, check out https://revtrev.com/coaching
Can someone live whole hearted? Do you know what it’s like to live whole hearted? Most of experience it in different seasons of our life. Maybe when you were in school and had to get a certain grade? Perhaps it was when you were pursuing your spouse or awaiting the birth of a child? Maybe when something happened in life and all you could do was put one foot in front of the other?
Do you know we can live our whole life whole hearted? It’s best when our heats align wholeheartedly with God’s heart.
The Manifesto has the statement-
It’s amazing what happens when I align my whole heart - my emotion, my intellect and my action -with the Father’s heart.
And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful. Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. Colossians 3:15-17
Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! Matthew 6:8
Our heart is the seat of emotions, the seat of our decision and the seat of our actions. We’re told to love God, trust God, seek God with all our hearts. That means we not only feel the emotion, we make the decision and take the action to live out what we do.
When we love God with our whole heart, trust God with our whole heart and seek God with our whole heart, we align our hearts with His heart for us.
You can see a video training for How to Live Whole Hearted on every page of https://revtrev.com It’s available in the widget in the lower left corner of every page.
Are you mindful of what God is doing in the day-to-day of your everyday? We can call it abiding in Christ or keeping in step with the Spirit, but it also means we are mindful in the moment and aware of what God wants to do in it.
I live today mindfully
I Live Today mindfully.
Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honour at God’s right hand. Colossians 3:1
I choose to Live Today Matthew 6:34, knowing faithfulness to God is multiplication. Matthew 25:14-30 Jesus said, “As you go…” Matthew 10:7-8
I Live Today mindfully. Colossians 3:1
It's Oliver Wendell Holmes who said, "Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good." I'm convinced the truer statement today is "Too many of us are so earthly minded we're no heavenly good."
We don't think enough about heavenly realities so we don't expect heaven to come to earth.
What I mean by that is this... Jesus told his disciples to make disciples by teaching them to obey everything he commanded them (Matthew 28:18). One of the things he taught his disciples that we ignore and discredit too often is this: he said, As you go (lit in the day-to-day of your everyday) heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons, raise the dead. (Matthew 10:8).
I’m convinced miracles happen in the moment.
It’s up to me to abide in Jesus and has His words abide in me.
It’s up to me to keep in step with the Spirit and only do what I see the Father do and only speak what I hear the Father say.
It’s up to me to attentive to what He’s doing in the moment.
I will often, once he has my attention, pray a silent prayer “Lord, what do you want me to notice?
It used to be more common that I’d feel a wind over my skin and I’d automatically start that prayer. It never failed to show me something amazing.
I’d see a vision, or say something way smarter than I am. The prophetic takes awareness.
Are you willing to make space for God in the day-to-day of everyday? Choose to leave space, decide to make space. I share some rhythms that help at https://revtrev.com/coaching
Live hopeful? Life without hope is not living at all. Especially during this time of self-imposed exile for the good of the realm. In this part of the Live LIGHT Manifesto we look at how we can and must live hopeful at all times and in any outbreak.
I Live Hopeful Trustfully.
Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.Philippians 4:11-13
I live hopeful trustfully.
I choose to Live Hopeful Romans 12:12, knowing I can trust my good Father 1 Thessalonians 5:24. Jesus said, “Don’t get lost in despair…” John 14:1
I Live Hopeful trustfully. Romans 15:13
Hope is only as valuable as what it’s been placed into. We all know what it’s like to misplace hope...we’ve all experienced disappointment.
But hope that is well-placed on Christ alone, is the hope that can never disappoint. It’s also the hope that requires trust in the One who is worthy of trust.
The good news is the kind of hope that requires trust, always leads us to, and though, peace.
God has shown me that my life has had 3 stages. He taught me faith and hope and now is teaching more and more about love.
To learn faith, I had to trust God with the best of all I had. We put our family, friends and finances of the altar and followed a call of obedience in a move to New Zealand.
We returned to Canada as my Dad was dying of Bulbar ALS and I had to learn how to trust God with my pain to learn how to truly live hopeful.
When we went to the last church I pastored I felt God say, “I’m going to teach you how to love”. And I don’t think I’m done learning that. What I’ve learned so far is that I need to trust God with my identity and authority to love somewhat close to the way He wants me to love.
Trust is so critical in our walk. We need to know the One who is trustable and trustworthy.
How are you doing that in this time of self-imposed exile for the good of the realm?
I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13 NLT
Why my plan is to Live LIGHT and help you to Live LIGHT too
Hi. My name is Trevor Lund and my plan is to Live LIGHT and help you to Live LIGHT too. You need to know a bit of my story to know why I’m so passionate about it. So thank you for listening as I share a short version of my journey.
My plan is to live LIGHT and help you live LIGHT too. Here's a bit of my story so you can see why I'm so passionate about it.
Why my plan is to Live LIGHT and help you to Live LIGHT too
Hi. My name is Trevor Lund and my plan is to Live LIGHT and help you to Live LIGHT too. You need to know a bit of my story to know why I'm so passionate about it. So thank you for listening as I share a short version of my journey.
Walking Oxymoron
I used to call myself "a walking oxymoron". I was a senior pastor and head of the Elder board when I was 25. It was good that I only knew that I didn't know much. In the 7 years I was senior pastor I was continually blown away by God's grace. In any way most people in churches count success - budgets, baptisms or butts- things were very, very good.
But we felt God's calling us to lay our family, friends, finances and future on the altar. I resigned from the church we loved in July 2004 and told them we would be available for them until the end of December, when we'd move to New Zealand without a call or a plan or any reason beyond obedience.
About a month later my dad was diagnosed with Bulbar ALS and was told he'd have only 18 months to live.
It was a tough, tough thing to leave our family and friends. But we had to obey what we felt God was telling us to do.
Our time in New Zealand
I went to New Zealand with the wrong attitude. I figured God owed me and if I had willingly given up so much, the least He could do was give me an open heaven.
We arrived in Aukland New Zealand at 6:00 AM January 1, 2005. It was a city of 1 million people... and everyone was at the beach.
We had friends come from the beach, lead us down an empty four-lane freeway to their house, then go back to the beach, inviting us to join them in the next days.
I don't know what "open heaven" means to you. I'm not sure what it means to me. All I know is an empty city of a million people is more post-apocalyptic than it is open heaven.
We learned a lot in New Zealand and we met so many amazing people, and had incredible experiences with God. But in August of that same year, after friends from all over the world agreed, we realized it was time for us to return home and be with family.
Three things I learned the hard way
We returned home in time to help my dad publish his book before he died. In the process I decided there had to be a better way to publish books and I started a publishing company. Over time, I learned 3 very important things.
1. I can't live offended at God.
2. I shouldn't make a major life decision like starting a company while I'm grieving and living offended at God.
3. No one should ever start a company on credit cards, especially when they are grieving and living offended at God.
The church I had pastored also held my ministerial credentials and the new pastor decided to withdraw their support of me because I wasn’t currently being paid as a pastor. We never did that when I was in his position. We’d walk alongside the hurting. It was days before my dad died. I felt completely rejected by people I loved just days before we all mourned my dad's death.
Life on the hustle
The back engine for the website I wanted developed for publishing got delayed and I started publishing books painfully slow. Authors needed websites, and I needed income, so I started doing websites. People saw my web copy and wanted help with theirs, so I started writing web copy and ad copy and short copy and sales copy. I didn't like scrounging clients so, I started ghostwriting books.
All of it was to keep ahead of the credit cards. I'd hustle to make the next payment. I thought I was protecting my wife if I kept our financial situation from her.
You can imagine how that affected our marriage.
My blog was getting 100,000 visitors a day. I had 5300+ subscriptions to my podcast and over 10,000 email subscribers. And I had two Twitter accounts with over 250,000 followers on each. Also I created a fast from negativity that outrank Oprah's call for people to do a negativity fast.
I was doing all I could to keep all the balls up in the air. I was pretending everything was amazing. From the outside a lot of people thought so. I was getting invites from around the world to come and share my message.
When it all fell apart
But my wife was mad at me, she was rightfully hurt and betrayed with my admission with how much we were in debt. I felt worthless and ashamed and incapable of supporting my family. I emotionally withdrew from her and the family.
With all the web traffic, my site kept crashing. I couldn't afford the downloads for my podcast and the fees for my email subscribers kept skyrocketing. With no way to make money with all those platforms, I had to kill them all.
All this time I was leading Bible studies and prayer times and teaching on different topics in several different churches. I was still staying close to God. I wasn't giving him credit for the works of the one who comes to steal, kill and destroy. I had learned to live unoffended at him and I wasn't blaming him for me not keeping in step with His Spirit.
Over the years
Over the years, we tried planting a church twice. The first on was stopped by our covering leadership just days before we launched. The second didn't even get that far because the ones who wanted us to do it, decided it was going to be too much work for them.
Over the years, I tried getting a real job. My wife and I describe a "real job" as one you earn paid vacation time when you work. When you have pastor and director of Christian ministries on your CV it's tough to get an interview for a real job.
When I did get an interview, some Christians thought they'd be taking me from my calling to give me a job, others thought I'd be too "evangelistic". Non Christians didn't know how my skills could be transferable in the real world.
I had one friend tell me "You used to be someone, what happened?" I had a complete stranger who was interviewing me to take over his position say, "I heard you on the radio last night talking about your book. You were great. That's what you should be doing, you don't want to work here."
That was great, but it would also be great to get a job be that was capable of doing and that would support my family.
I did get a job that I grew to really dislike. The pay was ridiculous and the owner wanted me to prove how much more money I brought in than he paid me - which was easy to do but degrading. I didn’t like trying to stand behind the process and product I knew every client was going to have issues working through. And I had to deal with backlash. Every decision that would have enabled me do the jobs I was expected to endure - was never made. I distain setting people up to fail and it was being done to me. It was the closest thing I may ever experience to a personal hell, but I needed my wife to know I'd do what I could to bring in some stable income for the family.
That part of the journey wasn't easy. I needed to confess and repent of a lot. But I have an amazing wife. She showed me what real forgiveness looks like. I have let her down so much and she's still the best friend I've ever had.
The seeds of Live LIGHT
In time, she was the one who convinced me to teach people how to really hope. I wrote the book “Hope in Transition” in 2010. It is a written expulsion of every lesson I had learned up to that point through everything we had to go through.
In 2013 I became a certified elite coach and started coaching people to help them live with their legacy in mind.
I really enjoyed coaching and kept it up for this first year I went to be the pastor at my next church. We went to a hurting church that needed to be healed. It was there the idea for Live LIGHT started to come into focus.
When we were in New Zealand my email signature was "Be a living light, living light". I didn't know what It meant or what it would become.
It was at that church that I started writing the Live LIGHT Manifesto.
My whole journey is one of learning to lean into failure and find contentment in pleasing God. I don't try to impress people and I can't and don't need to impress God. I need to be faithful and faithfulness to God is multiplication. That’s why I do classes and courses and coaching and blog posts and books with the same original content.
In the three years we were at that church we saw seven baptisms and two people we baptized had never seen a baptism before they got wet. It was fun, but we left that church just before it closed its doors. We were able to help some people, but we weren’t able to help the church more than they were willing to help themselves.
More recent history
In a short while, the first church I was at, was looking for a pastor.
I prayed about it and felt God wanted me to go back.
It turned out, they prayed about it and felt God wanted them to have someone else.
Shortly thereafter, on August 26, 2018, I had a heart attack.
In the year of recovery with a forced Sabbath some things became clear. I have been entrusted with the Live LIGHT message. Is is my opus. It's the legacy God's entrusted me to make the world a better place. It's everything I've had to learn, unlearn and relearn the hard way. I want to Live LIGHT and help you Live LIGHT too.
Live LIGHT
You were created to walk with God in the garden in the cool of the day. Sin came into the world and you bore the consequences. Jesus came and reversed the curse and took your place and offered you His yoke that is easy and his burden that is light.
You are a living light....will you live LIGHT?
I want to help you live loved radically, live intentional fearlessly, live generous joyfully, live hopeful trustfully, and live today mindfully.
And you can live this way, regardless of what you're going through in life. The darker your night, the brighter your light. It's the miracle of the transformed mind that silences the arguments and pretensions that set themselves up against the knowledge of God.
RevTrev.com- Daily articles to help you walk with God in the garden in the cool of the day Books - Ebooks - Audiobooks - What I create always needs to HELP - Honour, Empower, be Life-giving and Pleasing to God. Live LIGHT Mondays- email list Weekly encouragement to live LIGHT Manifesto Deep Delve - email list 30 day intensive look at the Live LIGHT Manifesto and how to live it out in the day-to-day of everyday Speaking - I make myself available to groups and if an online call-in works best for all of us - great! Contact me with you details. Interviews - Do you have a podcast, radio show or TV show does my message resonate with your viewers? Contact me and let me know. The Live LIGHT Show - A podcast to help you live loved, live intentional, live generous, live hopeful and live today Live LIGHT Friends- A Facebook group to help you move from busyness to blessing Live LIGHT Community - a private social networking site for Lighterati - those who have been called to freedom and use their freedom to serve others in love. Live LIGHT Pathway Coaching Group coaching that takes you through the Live LIGHT Pathway from frustration to fulfilment Live LIGHT Journey CoachingOne-on-one coaching that meets you where you are and walks with you to how you want to Live LIGHT. Live LIGHT Academy - Courses to help you live out of your God-created identity
