Being full of God’s love is the zenith of spiritual maturity!God’s love longs for us to receive more of His grace, which will take us to a higher spiritual place. So, what does God’s love living within us look like? Well, 1Corinthians13:7-8a states, “Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fade less under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening]. Love Never fails”. According to the Bible, our earthly human nature is identified as the “fleshly man”. On the other hand, there is a place deep inside our hearts where God’s Spirit resides and reigns, a place that is regarded as our “spiritual man.” Our fleshly man and spiritual man are usually quite at odds with one another. In general, our flesh wants what it wants… believes if things are going our way we will find fulfillment… and presumes that our lives will feel complete if we have no trials. Contrary to this belief, it is God’s will to use the trials we encounter for our good, as He comes close to us, and reveals and releases His great love, to help us move spiritually, and emotionally forward. Because of our living relationship with God through Christ, when trials do come, our inner spiritual man will begin to sort out and believe the Lord is working through all our hard circumstances. In time faith, endurance, steadfastness, and patience will gradually develop and grow. We must stop fighting God and surrender our circumstances to Him…not my will but thine be done. While God uses our trials as tools in our lives, He will work constructive spiritual progress into our hearts. This will produce the power of love, contentment, joy, faith, and peace, as our spiritual man gradually grows up and overshadows our fleshly man. God has the ability to use what Satan meant for evil, and turn it around for our good and spiritual growth. So the next time life’s circumstances feel totally out of sorts… don’t be afraid….just remember God loves us more than we can comprehend, and He is in the process of working wonderful, spiritual, qualities(His qualities) into our lives.

“Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations. Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience. But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing’ (James 1:2-4).