As I began my final day at IHOP I received a text this morning asking what “the secret” to the kingdom is. Referring to Mark 4:11 “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you..” This answer that I’m about to reveal may seem simple and like a no-brainer but embracing it produces life changing results. Are you ready?
Matthew 22:37 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
We all know this and say this but do we truly understand how life transforming this is? We’re told to love God with everything that we have. Simple? The only problem is we don’t possess the ability to love God in ourselves but yet we try. We try really really hard to love God, through the “blood, sweat, and tears” of ministry. Love isn’t trying really hard but responding to His love for us.
1 John 4:19 “We love because he first loved us.”
“Radical devotion for the Son of Man only comes when we experience His radical devotion to us.” It’s only in encountering his love for us that we can truly live out the first commandment. I grew up in the church and I gave my life to Christ in 2004 but it was in the last 7 days that I truly experienced how much God loves me. It’s out of that place that we can truly begin to “love the Lord our God” with everything. I knew God loved me and He sent His son to die for me but I didn’t really how passionately in love He is with me. He delights in me! The Creator of the universe delights in me, He’s crazy about me. Like a bridegroom longs for and delights in his bride is how much God longs for me. How I’m deeply and passionately in love with Esther is only a glimpse of His awesome love towards me. Beyond my inability to be good, despite the many times I’ve compromised our relationship it never once changed how He sees me.
Have you ever read the Bible? Seriously. It’s full of Him expressing His love for us, look…
Song of Songs 7:6 “How beautiful you are and how pleasing, O love, with your delights!” (read the entire book, it’s God’s love story about you!)
Isaiah 62:5b “as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you” (read the entire chapter!!)
John 17:22-23 “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. may they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even (just) as you have loved me.”
These are just a couple but really take a minute and think about how much he delights in you. We think he only likes us when we do the right thing but when we mess up, like a friend, we think He’s upset with us. NO! He’s there with his hand reaching for you encouraging you to get up and try it again. God has a longing desire for you that “is as strong as death..and many waters cannot quench love” There is nothing stronger, more consistent, more dependable than God’s love for you! Nothing we could ever do will cause Him to love us less. Even when we hate him or neglect him, he woos us to experience his love. The deepest desire of God’s heart, the Creator of all things, is to love and be loved.
Heavenly Father, lover of my soul, I love you. Thank you for revealing your love and delight in me. there are many things that have placed their bid for my time and energy but none have given me fulfillment. I repent for making this walk with you harder than it is, it’s all about love. I pray that just as you revealed yourself to me that you would reveal yourself to every reader of this blog. Allow them to experience just how much you delight in them. Give them a spirit of wisdom and revelation that they may know you better; that they would know that you see their heart’s desire more than their sin and inadequacies. Lord, I pray for an awakening in the body of Christ to your love and delight in us. Shake us until nothing remains but you! In Jesus' name, Amen.
A book I strongly recommend, that has changed my life, is "One Thing" by Dwayne Roberts
http://www.amazon.com/One-Thing-Boldly-Pursuing-Matters/dp/0976364255/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240331841&sr=1-2
1 comment:
The love of God is simple... He loves us. It feels that even within the year that I've truly been with God, I'm just now getting to understand the simplicity of my relationship with Him because that's what I need to share with others. It's almost like an explosion of sorts... revelations of God's love at various times. I pray people's eyes, minds and hearts are open to be exposed to who God has always said He was and is today... LOVE. Once we get this... wow, the rest just kinda falls into place.
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