Whom Should You Love from Afar? Don't Get Distracted from Your God-led Calling. 3 Things to Live By.

In today's episode, I go over loving people from afar. This world is full of corruption, deceit, and lies, and there could be people that you love dearly that just aren't good for your mindset, for your relationship with Christ, and they are just bringing you down. So today I am going to be talking about how you can still love those people from afar.

First I want to say a quick prayer... Lord, I pray that you lift up every single person reading this right now. I pray that you open up our hearts, our minds, our eyes, and our ears to you Lord. Please help us to receive your love and to show that love to others and help us to also know that sometimes we have to love people from afar so we can focus on our relationship with you and not get distracted. Lord thank you so much for your unconditional love and for everything that you've done. I love you with every ounce of my being. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Now let's go into some scripture:

25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. 27 And anyone who does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? 29 For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’

31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple. -Luke 14:25-33

So in these verses here it clearly states that we have to give up everything that we have, we have to put God first over everything, and love Him more than anything in this world.

"Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." -Deuteronomy 6:5

We have to love God with every ounce of us and always put Him first no matter what.

Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.” -1 Corinthians 15:33

So we can't be misled or deceived, we have to make sure that we are not surrounding ourselves with people that are going to corrupt us, and we have to focus on God and surround ourselves with people that will encourage and help us with our God led calling. This doesn't mean that we should only be around godly people because as disciples of Jesus Christ it's our duty to spread the gospel, let other people know about Jesus, and be around people that may have never heard about Jesus or don't believe. If someone is constantly bringing us down or distracting us from our God led calling and from having that relationship with Christ, sometimes we just have to love them from afar and not constantly be around them.

18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. -John 15:18-19

So as Jesus' disciples, we belong to Jesus and he chose us out of this world. We don't belong to the world and so the world and the people of the world are going to hate us. Worldly people, people that are deceived, and people that don't believe in Christ are going to try to fill us with these lies, and deception, and bring us down. We have to make sure we stand firm in our faith and know that the world hated Jesus first but we don't belong to the world. We belong to Jesus and we have eternal life in heaven with Him and God the Father.

36 Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the brothers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” 37 Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, 38 but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. 39 They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, 40 but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. 41 He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches. -Acts 15:36-41

So in these verses here we see that even the apostles and the disciples, Barnabas and Paul, had a disagreement and they parted ways because they were fully submitted to the will of God the Father, to spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to letting as many people know about Jesus as they could so that they may be saved by Jesus and have eternal life in heaven. So they had to part ways in order to be fully submitted to the will of God the Father, let the Holy Spirit guide them, and not be distracted by their disagreements. So sometimes it's best to part ways with someone that we love dearly or someone that is just not seeing eye to eye with us or agreeing with the things that we believe in. It's okay to part ways with them and love them from afar so we can focus on the bigger picture, which is our relationship with Christ, spreading the gospel, and pressing towards the prize of eternal life.

So sometimes you have to just love someone from afar or part ways with someone that is bringing you down, that's just not in alignment with your God-led calling or is distracting you from fulfilling the calling that God has placed on your heart. It doesn't mean that you have to stop loving that person or stop wanting the best for them, but you just have to separate yourself in order to fulfill the calling that God has placed on your heart, be fully submitted to the will of God the Father, and do what the Lord has commanded you to do. We should always put God first in everything that we do and we can't let anyone or anything get in the way of that.

So here are 3 things that I want you guys to write down and always remember and live by:

1. God should always be your #1 priority

- God created the world, He created everything in this world, he created us and we should live our life for God to follow Him, be fully submitted to His will, spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, and always seek to be in relationship with Christ.

- We are nothing without God and he should always be our #1 priority no matter what

2. Don't let anything or anyone distract you from your God led calling

- God has our best interests at heart and the things that he is calling us to do are so important and we can't let anyone or anything distract us from doing the things that God has called us to do.

- Even the people that we love so dearly sometimes can be a distraction for us and they may not see eye to eye with us or just don't believe in the things that we believe in and we cannot let those people distract us from what God is calling us to do.

- We have to always put God first and we have to make sure that we are staying faithful to our God-led calling and we are being fully submitted to the will of God the Father.

- If we have to part ways from the people or the things that are distracting us from our God led calling and just love them from afar, then that's what we have to do and it may not be easy but it's very necessary so we can stay faithful to our God led calling, do the things that God has called us to do, and stay faithful and obedient to Him.

3. You can love someone and want the best for them from a distance

- You may be afraid to part ways with someone because you love them so much and you are afraid that they will think that you don't love them or that you don't want the best for them, or maybe that is something that they are putting in your head like "If you loved me you wouldn't leave me or you wouldn't want space," but we have to let go of all of that because God is #1 in our lives.

- God is the most important thing and if someone is distracting us from God, from our God-led calling, they are bringing us down, and they are not good for us, then we have to just part ways with them and love them from afar.

- We can still want the best for someone but we cannot let them distract us from our God-led calling and from having a relationship with Christ.

- It's very important to still pray for that person, love them from afar, and want the best for them.

- God may change their life and you both may need some time apart to be able to get closer to Christ, and then you may come back together and be even stronger once you both have time to really focus on Christ and your relationship with him, but these three things right here are so important to always remember and live by.

So I hope this episode helped you to know that God should always be first in our lives and it's okay to love people from afar and want the best for them from afar if they are just bringing you down and they are not in alignment with your bigger purpose and your God led calling. I also hope that you wrote these things down and that you really truly remember them and live by them.

I love you guys so much.

Never forget to choose faith over fear.

-Lorena Camille (Faith Fuels My Fire)

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