The Love Collision: Love Is My Identity - Joy Akut
Joy Inyamu Akut is the author and publisher of iNyamu’s Eldorado,
her blog site which she describes as her personal space of great riches and
fabulous opportunity. She’s also the author of Kiss & Tell, her first
published book. She writes about life, the awesomeness of God, and encourages
people by enriching their Spirits with words of inspiration. She is simply
the girl Jesus loves, and lives everyday basking in His love. Joy is the
convener of INCENSE, a worship event which she tags as a ‘Love Revolution’
believing that a love identity and foundation releases the spirit and truth
kind of worship and everything else falls in place. She’s a girl desperate to
see a world submerged in and revolutionized by God’s love.
Twitter: @Inyamu_FQ Instagram: Inyamu_FQ
Buy Kiss & Tell Here
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Who are you? (A little about
yourself/what you do)
I’m always at a loss when I’m asked to
describe myself. I always refer to me as the
girl Jesus loves. I think in laying the foundation of my identity in God’s
love for me is every other thing. When I stand on that identity, I can be
stripped of all I am or am perceived to be and still be worth more than rubies.
I am a writer, a blogger and an author…
What is your definition of love?
Love! Love has taken a different twist
from what I imagined it to be. My definition was all looped around the fairy
tales, the heartbeats and the mushy stuff. But I’ve encountered love in its
rawest unprocessed form and I can boldly say, as I can identify myself as a
girl, so is God’s identity love… and He’s said as He is, so are we… thus Love
is the God kind of life. Sacrificial, caring, kind, merciful, helpful,
forgiving, redeeming, restoring… Love is life! Life is nuts without love. Love
is everything and without it, life is nothing. Love is king, and because I
love, I am royalty. Well, all the fairy tales are still inclusive, but it means
more when you’re grounded in your love identity.
Have you had a love encounter with God?
Yes! And it just keeps getting better.
Every day I meet a new dimension of His love, and it turns me into a greedy
being, because it’s never enough, I want more, more and so much more… to be
consumed and taken over by it.
How has that changed your life and your
perception of Christianity and what religion has portrayed it to be?
Religion made me feel like I had to do
to get… But I’ve come to realize that even before I knew Him, He loved me and
He gave it all up for me! The cross happened before my repentance. His love
came not after I agreed to love Him back, but even with the odds that I have a
choice to accept this love or turn my back on it.
Christianity is not as complicated as
religion makes it seem. It’s simple, and if many would just focus on the love
of God, there will be fewer struggles to do good and love our neighbors, you’ll
instead just be good and just love. Because that’s what love does, it
transforms. When you have a revelation of this original love, you are
transformed into a new life that transcends keeping a bunch of rules. Jesus
said there’s one law that overrules the rest, written in our heart, and that’s
to love. When you love, you’re unconsciously keeping the other commandments,
not out of deliberate actions, but from your heart.
How has this love shaped your
understanding of who God is?
I love how God deals individually with
us. I’m glad He’s continuously dealing with me on the issue of love personally
and I’m not living it, or understanding or struggling to understand it through
someone else’s experience. It’s my daily experience with Him, and it just shows
me that He is a loving Father, not a big bad angry God sitting on the edge of
His throne, waiting for me to get it wrong so He can punish me and teach me
lessons.
He’s a good Father, a loving friend, a
sweet counsel, a great teacher, a worthy King… He does all this in love, and
even when He corrects, He does so in love. Seeing Him in this light makes me
eager to work and walk with Him, to be called His own. I mean, my Daddy’s cool
like that and He loves me senselessly. He’s got the whole world in His arms,
but He still stares at me lovingly like I’m the only girl in the world. That makes me feel like the world is mine and
I can do all things.
How has this love walk affected your
life? i.e. Has this love shielded you from trials? If it hasn’t, how have you
been able to reconcile the truth of a loving God with the facts of life’s
challenges in your face?
Oh, I have faced challenges and trials.
But if you’ve gotten a revelation of Gods love, that your identity is in Christ
and His love is sure, when the challenges come, you’ll go through them easily,
even as much as they feel overwhelming because you know that God loves you, and
nothing can separate you from this love, not trials, not tribulations or
temptations and that’s my testimony.
I know for every treasure, there’s a devil
mounting up pressure because he knows he can’t stop the blessings, but he can
pressure me enough to give up on life. I’m the only one who can stop God’s word
from manifesting in my life. So I know God doesn’t send the storm my way because He’s
a loving Father, but when they come, He’s holding me in His arms, there with me
in the storm (because nothing separates Him from me, peas in a pod) and He
would not let me be tempted beyond what I can take, He knows what's in me and if the storm is too big for me, He'll stop it right in it's tracks. Life may throw those
challenges at me, but my Daddy’s got me, and this school of challenges isn’t
breaking me, I’m standing in love (God) and coming out better, well
schooled, stronger and wiser.
If you were given a chance to witness
this love to someone, what would you say?
This love is real. This love is easy…
it’s beautiful. You want a life that is real, easy, beautiful and full of hope?
Then accept this love, open your heart to love. It’s not about escaping the terrors of hell. Na, it’s
about enjoying heaven on earth before going to heaven in the heavens :)
God’s love is real, it’s the only substantial
thing you could ever have in this life. It’s realer and more reliable than your
wealth, your cars, your money, your beauty, and your hot wife/hubby… it’s real
and it never fails or gives up on you.
The warmth of love and grace awaits
you, it doesn’t matter how far away you’ve drifted and oh, the loving Father,
waiting eagerly with a warm kiss, a robe, a ring and a crown… not a rod and
judgment. Embrace love today, I promise a refund if it isn't worth it ;)
Three statements did it for me:
ReplyDelete'Every day I meet a new dimension of His love, and it turns me into a greedy being, because it’s never enough, I want more, more .......'
'Christianity is not as complicated as religion makes it seem. It’s simple, and if many would just focus on the love of God, there will be fewer struggles to do good and love our neighbors, you’ll instead just be good and just love. Because that’s what love does, it transforms.'
'When you love, you’re unconsciously keeping the other commandments, not out of deliberate actions, but from your heart.'
Great piece Joy, looking forward to the next installment.