HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE , OREGON
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Versed marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
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Italics in quoted Scriptures indicate emphasis added by the author.
Transforming Love
Previously published as Choose Love
Copyright 2014 by Stormie Omartian
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97408
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
ISBN 978-0-7369-7581-0 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-7582-7 (eBook)
The Library of Congress has cataloged the trade paper edition as follows:
Omartian, Stormie.
Choose love / Stormie Omartian.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-7369-5897-4 (pbk.)
1. God (Christianity)Love. 2. God (Christianity)Worship and love. 3. LoveReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Title.
BT140.O48 2014
231.6dc23
2014017271
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You shall love the L ORD your God
with all your heart, with all your soul,
with your entire mind, and with all your strength.
This is the first commandment.
And the second, like it, is this:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no other commandment greater than these.
M ARK 12:30-31
Contents
Choose to Receive Gods Love for You
Choose to Express Your Love for God
Choose to Love Others in a Way That Pleases God
I will never forget the day I first looked in one of those lighted magnifying mirrors. You know, the ones you can buy for your bathroom counter? They come in different levels of magnification. The one I bought was five times magnification because I needed to see certain things on my face and skin more clearly for the sake of good grooming.
I set it up, turned on the light, looked in the mirror, and nearly frightened myself to death.
I am warning you now that this is not for the faint of heart and you must prepare yourself in advance. First of all, be assured before you look in it that no one on earth sees you the way the mirror is reflecting you, with every pore and blemish enlarged; every brown sunspot, broken capillary, wrinkle, and line enhanced; and each imperfectionmany of which you never even knew were thereilluminated.
I have since recovered from that initial shock, but it took a while. And as time goes on there is more to see, so it actually doesnt become an increasingly pleasant experience. Its just something you know you have to do and you are more prepared to endure it.
Seeing yourself the way God sees you is like looking into a giant magnifying mirror of your entire being. But He sees you from the perspective of all He made you to be. He sees all the gifts, purpose, and potential in you, having been put there by the One who not only thought about you before you were born but had a plan for your life.
We too often see only the negative things in ourselves. We painfully observe where we are weak, lacking, or failing. God sees all that too, but He doesnt consider it all bad.
For example, God sees your weakness as an opportunity for you to trust Him to be strong in you. Your weakness surrendered to God enables you to gain strength from Him beyond anything you could ever have without Him.
God sees whatever you lack as a possibility that you will turn to Him and declare your dependence on Him so He can supply all your needs.
God sees your failure as an invitation for you to walk closely with Him, so He can empower you to accomplish what you couldnt begin to do on your own.
If you are not certain about all of this, then I invite you to seek God beyond what you ever have before and come to know Him better. The better you know who God really is, the more you will recognize how much you need Him. And needing Him is always a good thing.
Understanding Gods Perspective
The more we seek to know God in greater depth, the more He shows us about Himself. When we truly open up to God and invite Him to reveal Himself to us, He will do that. And this is something we must do. For we will never know who we really are until we understand who He really is.
God also shows us the truth about ourselves when we ask Him to do so. That can seem daunting, but dont let the idea scare you. The good news is that He doesnt let us see everything at onceboth about Him and about ourselves which would be overwhelming in either case. He lets us see a little at a time as we seek Him.
If you have a heart that longs to know the truth and yearns for a way to become all you were created to be, spend time with God every day getting to know Him. When you understand His amazing goodness, holiness, perfection, and love, it is healing for your soul. It also exposes any lack of goodness, holiness, perfection, and love in you. But dont be afraid of that. He doesnt expose these things to shock or demean you. He does it to let you know that He loves you enough to not leave you the way you are. He wants you to become all He created you to be even more than you do, because His desire is for you to live in a way that opens you to the countless blessings He has for you. What He has for you is nothing less than transformation.
From Gods perspective, He sees all you will be missing if you dont seek His presence and His will in your life.
Even when we think we have walked with the Lord long enough to have taken care of most of our imperfections, we find there is always more work to be done on a deeper level. Thats why we can never assume we are beyond our weakest tendencies. Or that we can make it through a day without total dependence on God and His Spirit in us enabling us to be the person He created us to be.
God wants us to become more like Him every day.
Notice I did not say we become God. I said we become more like God.
The truth is, we all need to be changed. God said we are made in His image, but He wants us to become partakers of His divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). That means opening our heart to God and allowing Him to mold and expand it so that we can contain more of His character.
How does that happen?
That question will be answered as you read this book. For now, just know that God wants you to become more like Him. He wants you to not only see in yourself what needs to be changed, but also to see yourself through His eyes of love.
