Blessing

Following is a blessing I gave to the leaders of CTK at the past Arrows Out Conference:

May you be filled with God’s love, so much so that you spread the fragrance of Christ wherever you go. May you do everything in love.

May you understand deeply that love is the essential characteristic of Christ’s followers - that it is not optional, but essential. May you become convinced of this at the very core of your being.

May God keep you from being seduced by Appearance, Achievement, Abilities and Accumulations; Pride, Position, Power and Prestige. May He remind us that it is not about us, it is about those who are about to come.

And in the expression of your giftedness, may you always remember that love is the greatest gift we can receive or give. May our teaching, our information, our worship and our ministries be laced with love, driven by love.

May your ministry be highly relational. May you win the world one person at a time. May you not become too busy to have the time, to take the time to love the people that God has placed around your life.

May you grow in your capacity to love; loving more people than you’ve loved before, growing in the kinds of people you love, loving over longer periods of time, loving in more ways than you’ve loved before and loving in spite of challenges. May you not quit at quitting time. May you just keep on loving.

May you keep the main thing the main thing. May you keep the arrows pointed out. May you stay out of God’s way. And may you be an instrument of God’s peace, sowing love where there is hatred, pardon where there is injury, faith where there is doubt, hope where there is despair, light where there is darkness, and joy where there is sadness.

May God grant that you would not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love.

May you follow God’s script for your story. May it be a love story – God-directed, others-centered, self-sacrificing.

May you be loving like Jesus was loving. Patient, kind, never envying or boasting, proud or rude. May Jesus help you to keep from being self-seeking, or easily angered, or from recording wrongs when they are done to you. My He give you great delight in the truth, and disdain for evil. May you be the protective, trusting, hopeful, perseverant servant that would remind the world of Christ Himself.

And may you know that love will not fail. Love never fails. Love will do the job in you and through you. May you bring glory to God and blessing to those in the world.

Amen.