release // 2021.

 2015: trust.

2016: healing.

2017: growth.

2018: discipline.

2019: new.

2020: rooted.

and this year?

2021: release.

I recently did an Advent study with some amazing women, and our word was birthed out of a revelation I had near the end: receive then release. our word for the new year reveals our desire to not hoard the love and goodness of God and fool ourselves into believing that it’s only for us, but to be faithful in releasing it outward.

as we receive God’s love, we will release it.

as we receive God’s forgiveness, we will release it.

as we receive God’s mercy, we will release it.

as we receive God’s joy, we will release it.

as we receive God’s generosity, we will release it.

...and so on.

the kicker, though, will be this: to release before we receive is to work for our salvation; to receive first is to work out our salvation. because He has already poured all of that out for us / over us, it is already ours to release; BUT we must remember that we are not trying to earn God’s affection.

here is our why: 

“Those who are loved by God, let his love continually pour from you to one another, because God is love. Everyone who loves is fathered by God and experiences an intimate knowledge of him. The one who doesn’t love has yet to know God, for God is love. The light of God’s love shined within us when he sent his matchless Son into the world so that we might live through him. This is love: He loved us long before we loved him. It was his love, not ours. He proved it by sending his Son to be the pleasing sacrificial offering to take away our sins. Delightfully loved ones, if he loved us with such tremendous love, then “loving one another” should be our way of life!” -1 John‬ ‭4:7-11‬

we are choosing deeper love as our way of life in 2021.

because in the backwards ways of God’s kingdom, the more we give the more we have!