To Love GOD
1 Peter 1 vs 8a, ‘You love him even though you have never seen him….’
How do I express love to someone I can’t see but can obviously see me?
I don’t know how he feels or can’t see His expression. So how do I know how? How do I love God?
Taking a husband and wife for example, a wife loves her husband and wouldn’t want to cheat on him…may not even think of settling down with any other man when her husband meets all her needs and loves her; infidelity is out of the question. She would be devoted to her husband with her body.
Well I’m not married yet..but I show love to those around me by wanting to be there for them, helping them when they need something, spending time with them, saying the words ‘I love you’ , not wanting to make them sad ’cause it would hurt me, learning to say I’m sorry to those I hurt.
But obviously I’m not super human so don’t think its all perfect. Sometimes its not easy to say sorry, but this is done with a little nudge from within; the Holy Spirit’s doing. I need the Holy Spirit’s help to relate with others.
The above illustration is to learn something; I need the Holy Spirit’s help. Remember in my last post on ‘God’s love‘ that we need power to understand God’s love, we need the Spirit of God to love also.
Most especially love entails SACRIFICE. I asked God how do I love, how do I show I love you? And what came to mind was sacrifice; sacrificial love. Sacrificing my time, setting some things aside to just be with Him.
God says we should love Him with all our heart, soul and mind. That means absolute devotion to Him.
Another way He knows that we love Him like we say we do is when we keep His commandments.
And when we love God so many benefits follow. For example:
God says in Jer 29 vs 11, ‘ For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.’
Now connect the above passage with this:
1 Corinthians 2 vs 9-11, ‘9 That is what the Scriptures mean when they say,
“No eye has seen, no ear has heard,
and no mind has imagined
what God has prepared
for those who love him.” 10 But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. 11 No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit.’
Loving God, choosing to know Him more and building up intimacy with Him allows us to know all He has in store for us.
Loving God, choosing to have know Him more and building up intimacy with Him allows us to know all He has in store for us.
Don’t love God ’cause of all the good things He can give you…Love Him ’cause He loved you first regardless of your sinful state when others might have rejected you.
i Feel Unacceptable…
I feel unacceptable. What I do….not that I wish to do them. Do I keep running? If so, when will it finally end? If I get what I deserve it is damnation! But the right shows a way I don’t even deserve, one of freedom.
What is this? A tinge of light….forgiveness… freedom? Can I truly receive this? I have done wrongs. I have cheated people….I have lavished in the arms of sin!The gnawing claws that try to tear in and take over my flesh, my mind. The pain caused by it reaching in. I am too deep in.
Clouded by this darkness that ebbs into my soul, trying to take control of me! They are laughing at me..delight in their eyes at my mishap. Taking me in the opposite direction of right, drawing me with empty desires….short lived pleasures. telling me I have fallen short of His glory already.Rom 3 vs 23,”for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, “ …and I shld continue …but I want no more of it …Rescue me please
What is this? The light scares the darkness away. It draws me with loving hands. I am not worthy! Worthy of this pardon…I feel unacceptable. Yet the peace I feel is overwhelming. “Why me?” I ask. And He said, “Why not you?” It broke down all my resolve to continue to hide from Him due to my despicable acts.
Despite my shaky knees, the arms draw me closer still…. I couldn’t hold myself from collapsing into them. It felt warm…good. A heavy burden lifted. I found redemption…. peace….joy…hope…Love; He quieted me with His love from all my pains and sorrow. Soaked and washed in the precious blood of the lamb …removing all my dirt and in return…receiving a many a gift ….amongst it….salvation.
And how great this Light is! The light shining so bright and illuminating my path; though I was blind due to the darkness that covered my eyes and filled my world, this light forced darkness to bow to it and step away. Your light shining in my heart and shining through me for others to see the great things You have done.
I was never unacceptable…it was a mere feeling of deceit…You have expected my return despite of how great my sins were.
How joyous I am and want to sing your praises!! The Lord has turned my darkness to light! Hallelujah!!!
🙂
Matt 11 vs 28-30. “28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Would you LOVE me now?…
If you don’t receive love from the ones who are meant to love you, you will never stop looking for it. – Robert Goolrick
She was the first wife! Her husband had married her first….so she had more rights to him. Yes, she knew she had gone along in tricking him to marry her….and she felt bad …but he was still her husband!
Leah watched as Jacob and Rachel talked….the light in his eyes when he spoke to her….the loving way he treated her. Now that was love….a love Leah had never experienced but longed for from her husband.
She had become accustomed to this way of life….a life of being rejected and unloved….unnoticed …and there was nothing she could do about it. She had loved her husband for over five years with no result. She looked away, knowing that she was not the one he wanted but was forced on him and for that reason she had to pay for it.
“Jacob won’t you come in to my tent to see me tonight?” She asked when they were alone eating supper. He said another night…that he was too tired from the days work. Leah knew if it were Rachel he would willingly forget his tired state. She sighed and with sorrow in her heart retired to her quarters.
Her husband came to her room for mere marital obligation rather than the passion between a man and a woman. She remembered their wedding night when he had wanted so badly to discover every inch of her…so immersed was he in his desire that he hadn’t known she wasn’t his intended. And now she watched him as he grew in love with another woman….her sister.
For better or worse….for better was when you had children and a sweet life with your family and prosperity was at its peak…… But for worse, people thought for worse was when there was no money, there was sickness or when one’s husband died or something of the sort…….but what she felt was worse was when your husband didn’t love you and you knew he loved someone else…..couldn’t God possibly turn her husband’s heart to her? Wasn’t that plausible? But maybe…just maybe if she had children….maybe he would love her…..
Few years later….
Their courtyard was filled with the sounds of children running about and having fun…..without a care of any trouble. Leah had finally been able to have children of her own…including children from her maid Zilpah, but that was not worth talking about…… Had she finally won the affection of her husband now that she had had three plus children for him?…..sadly no….
Her different quests to make her husband love her were futile….
Through the course of the years she had learnt children could not win the love of a man….
The supposed passionate times she had had with Jacob in bed hadn’t won him over….so sex could never make him love her…no matter how she sought to please him…. She had done things she never would have thought possible….purchasing his attention for the night….acting like a prostitute.
If a man didn’t want you….he simply didn’t want you…. So knowing she wasn’t going to divorce her husband she decided to shift her attention towards God and her children….those were the people who would love her endlessly….
Unrequited love………loving someone who doesn’t love you back. We all want to be loved by someone.
Its like Tayo liking Kehinde when Kehinde likes Mayowa ….. One way or the other we have experienced this and if you haven’t then I hope you never do. But then I ask can we continue to love someone who doesn’t love us?
Jesus came into this world to save us from our sins…
1 John 3 vs 5 ” But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.”
John 3 vs 16 , “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
He loved us right before we decided to love Him….
1 John 4 vs 9-10; ‘9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.’
1 John 3 vs 1 “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”
On His part that is GREAT…….. its hard when we love (romantic love) and the person doesn’t feel the same way……but know this….hope isn’t lost…. don’t force yourself on someone heaping up false hopes for yourself….don’t think of using ‘love potion’……WAIT ’cause God makes everything beautiful in it’s time.
Bask yourself in His love and love yourself…..yeah its hard but the pain won’t last forever……
If you have any experiences please do share and let’s learn….
MysteriesofLove360° 