THE LOVE THAT GOD DESIRES

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Mark 12:30

God requires us to love him with our entire being. He does not want us to love Him partially. He does not want us to serve two masters! Either you love Him or you don't. There are four areas where our love for God is expressed:

1. Heart: The heart is the seat of emotions. If we sincerely love God, our affections will be on the things above. Our desire to do right in secret and in the open will come naturally to us. Just as the heart pumps blood to every part of our body, the love of God should permeate every areas of our lives. In our dealings with our neighbors, we will do the right thing. In our talk, we would not curse, slander, or backbite. We will not bring down others but we will uplift them with the word of God. God is love and in Him there is no guile, therefore, there must be no guile in us. We must be plain, upright, honest, and free from hypocrisy. We must be open to conviction by the Holy Spirit, who helps us to discern the thoughts and intents of God for our lives. 

2. Soul: The soul is the self or "I". It is that which gives life to the body. Our ability to see and hear, to think and speak, our intelligence and emotions, will and desire, personality and identity, is due to the presence of the soul. It is the engine of this physical life. Since the soul is the seat of will and desire, you can choice to be fully committed to God in your faith. You can choose to yield your soul to God by uniting it with His. When you love God with all your soul, it means that you have decided to align your will, desire, identity, personality, and your intellect, with His. You have allowed God's image to be your image just us He created it to be. In all you do, you begin to ask yourself what would Christ have done in any situation you find yourself? When you love God will all your soul, you make wise decisions in life. The soul is God's breath in you. A person who loves God with all the soul can say with the hymn writer, Edwin Hatch, 

1. Breathe on me, Breath of God,                                             fill me with life anew,                                             that I may love what thou dost love,                                             and do what thou wouldst do.                                         2. Breathe on me, Breath of God,                                              until my heart is pure,                                              until with thee I will one will,                                              to do and to endure.                                          3. Breathe on me, Breath of God,                                              till I am wholly thine,                                              till all this earthly part of me                                              glows with thy fire divine.  When you love God with all your soul, you love whatever God loves and do what God would do. Your heart is pure and your will is God's will. The self is subjected to the direction of God and you glow with divine fire. You begin to walk in the counsel of God and whatever you do, you prosper because it is the will of God.  1Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. 2But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. 3And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Psalm 1:1-3

3. Mind: This is the part or faculty of a person by which one feels, perceives, thinks, remembers, desires, and imagines.  Do you proclaim to love God outwardly, yet in your mind, you belittle Him. You don't believe that He is the "I AM THAT I AM." When you love God with your all mind, you see Him as an infinite God; a God of impossibilities and possibilities. He is a God of all things and not somethings. When you love God with all your mind, your meditate upon His word day and night. Your mind is saturated with his word. You wake up with Him on your mind and sleep with Him on your mind. The mind is the playing ground for he devil as well. It is therefore important to saturate it with God's word if you love Him. If you love God, you will hand over the mind to Him.

4. Strength: Loving God with all your strength means been steadfast, forceful, firm and resolved to serve Him regardless of the circumstances. It is a determination to love Him no matter what comes your way. In good times and bad times, rain or shine, in poverty or riches, you will not deny Him. Job loved God with all his heart, soul, mind, and all his strength. 

May you find grace today to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." Amen!

MADE ALIVE IN CHRIST!

HE IS RISEN! 

HALLELUYAH!

HE IS RISEN! 

HALLELUYAH!

HE IS RISEN! 

HALLELUYAH!

DEATH COULD NOT HOLD HIM CAPTIVE!

OH! WHAT A SAVIOR JESUS IS!

MAY HIS BLOOD THAT STILL SPEAKS ON CALVARY CROSS BE MADE MANIFEST IN YOUR LIFE TODAY AND FOREVERMORE.

MAY EVERY DEAD THING IN YOUR LIFE BE MADE ALIVE TODAY! 

VIDEO: VICTORY IS YOURS!

YOUR VICTORY IS SECURED!

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord,

The Creator of the ends of the earth, Neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable.

29 

He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall, But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength;

They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary,

They shall walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40:28-31

Life is not always rosy as one would expect it to be. There are times of joy and times of sorrows and calamities. In times of joy, it is easy to praise God and to thank Him for His blessings. It can be difficult to do the same in challenging times. You can lose your focus during this time and may even question the existence of God. But in such times, you need God's help the most because He knows and sees what you are going through and He has prepared a way of escape and deliverance for you. It is the time to remember that He has promised to take you through the waters, the fires, and the shadows of death and they shall in no means hurt you. You must only remain firm in your faith in Him. Have faith in His ability to deliver you in times of trials and tribulations. Job, the faithful man of God, in the Bible, knew His God to the fullest degree possible so he did not waver in his faith in even though he lost all his possessions and children. He was rewarded for his abiding faith with several folds of blessings that could not be compared to the initial one. 

Israel went through a difficult time and they began to question if God really was with them. It was at this point that Isaiah, the prophet, queried them by asking, "Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth, Neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable." We will never understand the ways of the Lord. Why do the righteous suffer or why are some poor? Every thing that happens in life is a piece of the puzzle that is needed to bring you closer to the ultimate destiny ordained by God for you. He created you and He even knows the number of hairs on your head. So why worry if you are on the Lord's side! 

The hymn writer, Frances Ridley Havergal (1836-1879), wrote in the fourth verse of his hymn "Who is on the Lord's side":

Fierce may be the conflict,

  Strong may be the foe,

But the King’s own army

  None can overthrow.

Round His standard ranging

  Victory is secure,

For His truth unchanging

  Makes the triumph sure.

When you are on the Lord's side, the battle may sometimes be fierce but because the Lord is your captain, you know that victory is secured. We know no defeat, we know no defeat; Jesus is our captain and we know no defeat!

Wait on the Lord and trust in His ultimate deliverance, for  "He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength." He would give you enough grace to walk through the challenge until you are victorious. He will renew your strength like that of an eagle and you would soar higher and higher above all the problems. Your weaknesses would be turned into strengths. Its is then that you would understand that "His understanding is unsearchable." Challenges in life come to remind us of the need to totally depend on the Lord. Paul summarized it clearly in 2 Corinthians 12:8-10:

"Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong."

May the Lord grant you sufficient grace and strength to go through any challenges and trials that may come your way. Stay focus like Job and it will be well with your soul. 

Your victory is secured in Jesus' name. Amen!

VIDEO: MEANING OF TRUE LOVE

LOVE WITHOUT BOUNDARIES!

And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Ephesians 5:2

To love is to be a sacrificial lamb for your fellow neighbor. It is a self-sacrifice. Love will cost you your patience, time and effort, money, etc., while your fellow neighbor benefits or gains from your loss. Love makes the other person better off at your expense. Christ demonstrated this to us as stated in Romans 5:8.

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." 


Love does not look at the perfections of the other before being demonstrated. It looks beyond the imperfection and works with whatever baggage the person has. In fact, love sees the good and the ugly yet it does not discriminate its service to the receiver. Christ died not for the righteous but for the unrighteous and ungodly. He wanted to turn the bad into good. It cost Him His life to achieve this goal. Christians ought to love one another just us Christ loved us. We must not pick and choose who we want to love. Many times we prefer to show our love to those we are more likely to benefit from if we need them than to those who are outcast, rejected, dejected, homeless, poor, unkempt, wayward, etc. Christ did not discriminate. He dined with those who held low status in the society. His aim was to elevate them to a new godly status which is more important than the earthly one. 

Do you love others because of what you will get back from them later in life, or do you love others blindly? Love does not have any boundaries. It does not know any color, race, or ethnicity. It just seeks to do good to all!

We have not yet loved to the point of death. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13) 

"Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die." (Romans 5:7)

We often get tired helping the needy. We get tired of people always asking us for favors especially those who genuinely need it. We are encouraged not to be weary of doing good. 

"And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart." (Galatians 6:9)

Love does not get tired. It seeks the welfare of others constantly. When we love one another out of a genuine heart, we are following the footsteps of our Master Jesus Christ who loved us unconditionally. It is then that our lives will be unto God like "a fragrant offering and sacrifice." Our lives will not stink to God because we will be doing exactly what He wants us to do and not professing one thing and doing the other. If you are of God, you will imitate Christ, His beloved Son.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4:7-8)

Therefore, my beloved friends, "walk in love, as Christ also has loved us…" (Ephesians 5:2). Do something special for somebody in a dire need today. Go an extra mile for somebody of a lowly status in life, somebody outside your usual circle of friends, somebody you are normally uncomfortable being around like those from other cultures or race. You will experience the inner and true joy of your calling in Christ Jesus. Stay blessed today!

PREPARED AND POSITIONED FOR GOD'S USE

For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Esther 4:14(NKJV)

While Israel was in captivity, the young beautiful Jewish lady, Esther was chosen to be the king's wife. God positioned her there for a reason which was not immediately obvious to her. As the queen, she could go to the king at any time to intercede for her people any time their lives were threatened. She was at a vantage point to help. Life is not about yourself alone, it is about using what God has given to you or your talent to help others achieve their destiny. You attain your blessings by being fruitful and obedient to God's direction. Even though Esther was in this vantage point, she did not know what to do even though the desire to help was there. It was at this point that his uncle, Mordecai, helped her to understand that God had prepared her and placed her in her current position for His assignment. Live does not occur in vacuum. It is God who permits and controls what happens. Mordecai made Esther to reflect on the actual purpose of her calling as a queen. The purpose was to bring deliverance to Israel. He made her understand that it was God's assignment that she was there to do. She would not fail because God was with her. It was up to her just to obey and allow herself to be used to bless others. If she failed, God will still bring deliverance to His people but the blessings will bypass her. 

Are you in a position where you can be an advocate for the needy, oppressed, depressed, poor, abused, etc. Are you in a political position where you can use your influence to propose or pass laws that would change somebody's or a nation's life for the better? Are you a priest, missionary, or an evangelist who can go to places where others can't go? Use your position to reach out to the unsaved. You have been given a special assignment to perform. 

You may sometimes find yourself in places where you feel unqualified for an assignment. When this occurs, it is important to understand that the battle is not yours, it is the Lord's. He has prepared, ordained, and positioned you for His purpose. When doubts and fears step in, reject them and move forward in faith. You will be victorious because the Lord is with you.

SAVIOR, SELECT MY PATH

Surrender your ways to God and he will direct your path. May the words of the hymn below be your prayer today as you seek the perfect will of God concerning your life today.

1	Savior, select my pathway; Choose it, dear Lord, for me. I have no other longing, Only Thy will I’d seek. You have ordained my pathway, However hard it be; Lord, for Your heart’s good pleasure, I’d follow willingly.
	Please now uphold my hand, Lord— You know my weaknesses; Else can I only sorrow, Uncertain how to live. If You’ll uphold my hand, Lord, Whatever path You chart, Whatever way or time, Lord, ’Tis sweetest to my heart.
2	Whether ’tis smooth or rugged, If it is but Your choice, It has my full consent, Lord; None other will suffice. I could not dare to choose, Lord, Though You would give me rein; Lord, do select my pathway— Your wish is my command.
3	My time is in Your hands, Lord, No matter fast or slow. I don’t have any preference; Schedule me as You will. If You would teach me patience,  Daily or year by year, I wouldn’t wish Your hinderance Swiftly to disappear.
4	Here is my life’s remainder— Do with it as You please; Though there be joy or anguish, I’d let You reign in me. Every distress is precious When I can see Your face; Every delight is loathsome If it’s without Your grace.
5	Lord, do select my pathway, Though I be hale or ill, Whether through tears or laughter, Slander or fame Your will. Work of whatever size, Lord— I would let You decide; This only would I prize, Lord: That You be glorified. Click here to listen to the tune for this hymn.

YOUR WAY, LORD, NOT MINE WAY!

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.                     Isaiah 55:8-9 (NKJV)

Everyday, we make plans for our lives. How we plan to retire, what to eat, how to keep ourselves healthy, the type of friends we choose, the person we choose to marry and so on. We make many choices to suit our social or economic status. But are these plans the plans that are in line with God's plans for our lives? If you eat healthy and still fall sick, is it in the will of God? You may be in the permissive will of God but there is a more perfect will of God for you. His thoughts for you far more outweigh yours thoughts and ways. It may not be what you desire at a particular time but it is all part of the bigger plan that He has for your life. God does not do anything by chance. His ways are calculated with your destiny in mind and that is to bring you to an expected end where you have a "hope and a future". The song writer, Horatius Bonar (1808-1889), summarized Isaiah 55:8-9 in a simplistic everyday language that captures what these verses mean:

1	Thy way, not mine, O Lord,   However dark it be; Lead me by Thine own hand,   Choose out the Path for me.
2	Smooth let it be, or rough,   It will be still the best; Winding or straight it leads   Right onward to Thy rest.
3	I dare not choose my lot;   I would not if I might: Choose Thou for me, my God,   So shall I walk aright.
4	Take Thou my cup, and it   With joy or sorrow fill, As best to Thee may seem;   Choose Thou my good and ill.
5	Choose Thou for me my friends,   My sickness or my health. Choose Thou my cares for me,   My poverty or wealth.
6	Not mine, not mine the choice,   In things both great and small; Be Thou my guide, my strength,   My wisdom and my all.

Click to listen to the tune of this hymn.

Are you ready to accept the perfect will of God for your life? It may not be pleasant for the time being but in the end, "all things work for the good of those who love the Lord" 

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28

Nothing occurs in a vacuum. Every puzzle of your life is a piece of the larger puzzle yet to be achieved in God's plan. 

Let your prayer today be "Lord, not my choice, in things both small and great; Be thou my guide, my strength, my wisdom and my all. May I walk in your perfect thought and ways for me. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen"

FILL ME LORD WITH YOUR HOLY SPIRIT

But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,⁵⁶ and said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” ⁵⁷ Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; ⁵⁸ and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.⁵⁹ And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” ⁶⁰ Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep. Acts 7:54-60

The Christian race cannot be ran without the power and anointing of the the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the oil that grease the pivots and joints of the Christian to be able to propel and navigate the complexities of this world. The Holy Spirit is the spiritual GPS that offers guidance and direction in planning, decision making, discerning good and evil, and knowing the mind of God. He reveals the mysteries of God to the believer. He enables the believer to withstand trials and overcome temptations. Stephen was able to withstand persecutions as if it was nothing because he was "full of the Holy Spirit." Without the Holy Spirit, you will be blown and tossed about by the wind; you will quit when the going becomes tough. The Holy Spirit revealed to Stephen the mysteries of heaven. “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”

The Holy Spirit energizes you to forgive your enemies and to love them even when they are stabbing you in the back. A Christian's life is meaningless without the Holy Spirit. As you wake up each day, ask God to constantly fill you with the Holy Spirit to lead to in all your endeavors. He is the promise that Jesus gave us when he was about to be taken to heaven. He promised us the ' helper" and it is up to us to allow Him to lead us in God's direction.

May your prayer today be "Lord fill me fully with your Holy Spirit that I may know your ways and plans concerning my life. May I be known as a man full of the Holy Spirit in Jesus' name. Amen!