Receiving/Weakness

Receiving
I was trying to love God as Brother Lawrence did, but I couldn't manufacture it, which quickly led to discouragement.  The Lord reminded me of 1 John 4:19:  "We love, because He first loved us."  When I remember the Lord's love for me, it's easy, even automatic, to love Him back.
Ephesians 2:6-7 says that God raised up His people with Christ and seated us in the heavenly places in Christ, so that He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  According to this verse, the reason God saved us was to display His rich kindness by being kind to us believers.  I'm so glad I signed up for that!  His kindness and love really do bring us to a place of overflowing, heartfelt gratitude.

Weakness
Since it's the Christmas season, I was thinking about baby Jesus and his smallness and helplessness.  Also, when He died, He was helplessly hanging on a cross, the ultimate in physical weakness.  He was the perfect example of God's power being perfected in weakness.  When Christ's body breathed its last, sin, Satan, and death were defeated.  Now that's power.
Speaking of power, I've been amazed as I have been reading in my daughter's science book about the vastness of God's creation.  A galaxy is a star system containing from millions to billions of stars.  Astronomers presently estimate that there are over 120 billion galaxies!  Mind boggling.  That's the power of God, and that's the power that is at work in His people:  "Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the POWER that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.  Amen" (Ephesians 3:20-21).